


Drifters

by keelywolfe



Series: Drifters 'verse [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Babybones (Undertale), Friends to Lovers, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Rescued Child - Freeform, Sex, Spicyhoney - Freeform, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Papyrus/Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underswap Sans (Undertale), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keelywolfe/pseuds/keelywolfe
Summary: When Red came to Edge and told him he needed to show him something in Alphys's lab, this was not what he had in mind.
Relationships: Papyrus/Papyrus (Undertale)
Series: Drifters 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2162889
Comments: 339
Kudos: 207





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

Edge clutched the little bundle in his arms closer as he slogged through the snowdrifts. A thin, unhappy wail rose from the tightly wrapped blanket, a tiny waft of vapor rising with it. Edge could only hold the baby tighter, vainly trying to silence the child before their cries carried. 

Uselessly. He could already hear the guards behind him, a rabble of snarling and incoherent threats mingled with large bodies crashing through the low-lying frostbitten shrubs and branches of Snowdin wood. Edge ducked behind a tree trunk, crouching, already braced for the near-euphoric rush brought by a large increase in EXP. There could be no survivors, none to follow them.

He waited and didn’t bother trying to silence the baby again, let her wavering shrieks lead the way into an attack that he never had to send. Even as the first few came into view, they fell to the ground shrieking, clawing at their very skin. A Check showed KR shearing away their HP, gouging away chunks as their screams overshadowed the child’s wails. 

He didn’t wait to watch them dust. From behind him came a familiar voice, weary and ragged, “keep going, bro, we’re almost there.”

Almost there. Edge got back to his feet, stumbling as his knees nearly gave out. He caught himself in time, leaning against the tree trunk to catch his balance. There was no time to waste, none at all, and still he took a moment to tuck the blanket back around the baby where one tiny fist had worked its way loose to flail in the cold. 

“Easy, little one,” he crooned, hardly recognizing his own hoarse voice. “We’re almost there. We’ll be safe soon, I promise you.” He didn’t look down into those pale eye lights, distantly afraid that the child would see the lie on his face. He started walking again in the direction of the cave where their machine was hidden away from any prying eyes. His brother started out at his heels, the snow drifts should have given him more trouble simply based on his height, but Red soon outdistanced him, clearing a path for Edge to stumble along even as the child’s cries grew weaker in the cold.

Almost there, to the machine, to the portal, and to Underswap. 

Red was already clearing away the carefully placed barricade around the entrance to the cave. It looked as if an avalanche covered it, but there was a certain place where the snow and stones were thin, barely large enough for a broad skeleton and his tall brother to make it through. Edge helped him as best he could with only one free hand, for once carelessly scattering stone and slush, taking no pains to hide their path. It didn’t matter, they wouldn’t be coming back here again. 

Edge tried not to think of everything they were leaving behind at their house. A tattered old book, a ridiculous pet rock, a sock and its collection of threatening notes. None of that was as important as their lives. As her life. 

Red cleared the last of the rubble away and gestured towards the entrance. “g’wan, bro, you first.”

Normally, he would have refused. He was far better equipped to take a dishonorable blow to the back than Red was, and he could tell at a glance that his brother’s magic reserves were running far too low for any of his shortcuts. 

But there wasn’t time for an argument. He cradled the child close to his chest as he crawled through the small opening. Inside, the cave opened up and he walked unsteadily towards the blinking colored lights that shone through darkness to the far back, where the machine loomed silently, waiting. 

Edge didn’t look at his brother while he set the coordinates, ones that he knew as well as his own callused soul. He didn’t watch Red going through what he’d gleefully dubbed the ‘oh, shit’ protocols when he’d set them up, arming the explosives that were already set. They’d always known it might come to this; it was one of the reasons they’d moved the machine out of their basement to begin with. The only question was which side of the portal they would be on when it happened. 

A last tap on the controls and Edge pressed the red button, watching as the black, depthless vortex swirled into sight, shimmering with same mysterious power as it always had. Red dusted off his hands, climbing to his feet with a grunt as he walked over to where Edge was standing. In his arms, the child’s whimpers faded in querulous little sounds as she sucked on her tiny fingers, staring up at him with wide, pale eye lights. As insignificant as her weight was, his arm was beginning to ache from holding her.

Red gave him a nudge in the femur with one elbow, digging painfully into the bone. “let’s go, boss.”

“No,” Edge said decisively even as he strode forward. “Not Boss, not any longer.”

Red only shrugged and followed him. “whatever you say, bro.”

The last thing he heard as he stepped through the portal was the soft click of his brother’s thumb on the detonator.

On the other side, from icy cave into a tidy basement, there was no sign that the explosives had done their work. Not so much as a tremor came through and the portal faded away as it always did. But when Red logged the coordinates to their world into the machine, it came up with the message ‘not found’.

It was enough. It would have to be. 

Edge took a moment to catch his breath, closing his sockets and listening to the stillness of the basement, of the little gurgling, pleading cries from the child, of his brother’s sneakers on the cement floor. Then he went up the stairs and braced himself to go back out into the freezing cold after the relatively mild chill of the basement. 

The path around the house to the front door was shoveled clear, with no traps or signs warning that trespassers could fuck off, one of Red’s charming additions to their home defenses. No, not home, not any longer, he couldn’t think about that right now. He let his feet carry them to the front porch where he rapped firmly on the door beneath the twinkling lights.

It opened and there wasn’t enough left in Edge for even a fraction of surprise that Stretch answered it for once, his lanky frame all but sprawled against the door jamb as he leaned out. The relief at seeing him left Edge nearly weak; all his reserves had been used up getting them this far and now that salvation was in sight, his will was beginning to waver.

That face, like and unlike his own, the sight of which often left Edge torn between snarling into it and kissing that pretty mouth where so many sly insults were offered with painful accuracy. Edge had done both, sometimes only seconds apart as they rolled around on the bare mattress that Stretch called a bed, and he still couldn’t say which he preferred. When it came to Stretch, there was little in the way of answers as to how Edge felt about him, but there was at least one he knew for certain. 

Stretch would never let anyone hurt a child. 

Whatever greeting he’d been about to offer- depending on his mood, it could be flirtatious, antagonistic, or perhaps even a truly awful pun— died unspoken as Stretch’s gaze dropped to the baby, who was by now whimpering in his arms. His sockets went incredulously wide, his eye lights narrowing into pinpricks of white, his mouth working soundlessly as he stared. 

“is that a fucking baby?” he said finally.

“good guess, dumbass,” Red snorted, stamping the snow off his shoes. “puttin’ that phd of yours to good use.”

“Don’t swear,” Edge said automatically. “Can we please come inside?” Normally, the cold wouldn’t have bothered him so much but with his magic depleted, he was starting to shiver, unconsciously clutching the warm bundle closer until the child babbled a complaint.

Stretch nearly tripped over his own feet trying to get out of their way, yanking the door all the way open. “yeah, yeah, sure, fu—udgcicles, jumped up jiminy gyftmas, yes, get in here!”

On any other day, he would never have considered stepping onto the carpet without removing his boots. Today Edge could only stagger to the sofa, collapsing down on the cushion and staring dully at the footprints of melting snow that he’d left across the carpet.

He could hear Stretch speaking, demanding answers from him and Red as he slammed the door shut, but he was too weary to answer. He settled a hand on the baby’s chest, let her grasp his chilled fingers in her little hands as he let his head wearily drop back on the sofa cushions, soaking in the first beginning trickles of warmth that he’d felt since he’d made his mad dash from Hotland, leaving the smoldering wreck of the lab behind him.

The baby was finding no satisfaction from gnawing on his fingertips and as her cries increased in urgency, Edge could only lay on that ratty old sofa and wonder at what the hell he was going to do now.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Stretch had never struck Edge as the person to turn to during any sort of emergency. His laissez-faire attitude about life was one generally matched by his own brother and by Sans, but Red at least understood when some urgency was necessary, at the very least in the interest of staying alive. Unfair as it was, Sans was also given something of a mental pass for simply looking so much like Red and if he’d been thinking clearer, Edge might have chosen a flight plan to Undertale instead. Typing in the coordinates for Underswap was more an automatic reflex on his part than any direct decision; he was simply here more often and while he might not mind sharing a bed with Papyrus, putting it to use the same vigorous way he often did with Stretch didn’t have quite the same appeal. 

So it was something of a surprise for Stretch to immediately take over. 

Once it became clear that questions would have to wait, he got moving immediately, his slippered feet going far faster than Edge had seen before. In short order, Edge and the baby were wrapped in a heavy blanket that was ripped right from Blue’s bed going from the cheery rocket ship pattern. Red was firmly tucked into another, snoring underneath it before the blanket was even settled. 

“i gotta hit the store real quick, we don’t have anything in the fridge for a baby,” Stretch panted as he made another mad dash down the stairs, this time directly to the front door. He didn’t wait for an answer, already kicking off his slippers and stuffing his feet into his sneakers, the door slamming loudly behind him. 

Well. That was…unexpected. Edge might have more room to spare for astonishment and perhaps a touch of guilt over his assumptions if he weren’t so exhausted; such emotions would simply have to wait. 

The house was silent except for the baby. Now that she was warming up, her little pleading snuffles were slowly resuming in volume. 

He drew back the corner of the blanket, carefully keeping his hand out of reach of her tiny grasping fists before she tried stuffing his fingers back into her mouth. As uncomfortable as the gnawing had been, he was more concerned with her accidently hurting herself on his sharpened fingertips than her little teeth.

It was the first chance he’d had to really look at her since that first moment in the lab and he took the chance to study her carefully. Her eye lights were pale white, offering no hint to the color of her magic. Perhaps they’d stay that way, Stretch and Sans’s were white when they weren’t using their magic, or perhaps they’d change as she grew older and they would be more like Blue’s…or his own. It was possible, she was from Underfell, but there was no sign of that in her. Her teeth were blunted, except for the little points of her canines, and her skull softly rounded, giving her the appearance of chubby cheeks. 

She was merely a child, a skeleton child, there was nothing remarkable at all about her, and Edge knew very little about children. That was a fact very quickly proven when her small face suddenly screwed up into a ball of anger and she began to scream. 

“Don’t do that…!” Edge began, then trailed off, cursing his own stupidity. Yes, a stern talking-to would certainly calm a bawling child. He shifted her awkwardly in his arms, giving her into a little bounce as he tried to coax her instead, “Shh, shh, it’s all right. It’ll be all right, baby.”

The child was having none of his lies. Her hands were clenched into tiny fists, her little face sufficed with bright pink that had nothing to do with her magic and everything with the purity of her anger as she shrieked her rage for all to hear.

Exhaustion gave way to panic. LV maddened Monsters attacking him, Edge could handle, a howling baby was far, far out of his area of expertise. 

At the other end of the sofa, his traitorous brother didn’t even stir, not even when Edge gave him a kick. He only lay with his mouth open as his snores competed with the baby’s screams in volume, and Edge couldn’t even accuse the bastard of lying; he’d used a lot of magic in their escape and was as exhausted as Edge, more so.

Tears were beginning to roll down the baby’s chubby cheeks and humiliatingly, Edge felt a faint prickle of his own tears. He hadn’t cried since he was a child himself, how ironic that it was another child dragging it out of him. That was all he needed, the two of them blubbering together on Stretch’s sofa for him to find, while his brother snored away, that would certainly be an impressive sight. Why had he ever thought for even a moment he could manage this, he knew next to nothing about babies. All he’d done is drag the child from one horrible situation to another. 

The door opened just as he ran a hasty arm over his sockets, wiping away any revealing moisture as Stretch stepped inside, juggling numerous bags in his arms as he kicked the door shut.

“okay, back, sorry it took so long, the dogs dug some baby gear out for us, said they’d bring more later…woah, hey, what’s all this?” Stretch dumped the overflowing bags by the door and before Edge could protest, whisked the baby into his arms, settling her on his hip with a practiced bounce. “c’mon now, princess, got a broken volume control? you’ll be waking up the folks in new home if you keep up at that level.”

The screams faded into pitiful hiccoughs as the baby looked up at Stretch with wide sockets and when he gave her a playful little chuck under the chin, she let out a watery chuckle. Stretch grinned back at her. “that’s more like it, sugar butt. let’s get you something for that empty tum, yeah?”

If he hadn’t been so relieved, Edge might have resented how easily Stretch took over. As it was, in only moments the baby was propped up in a nest of pillows, gurgling happily as she drank from the bottle Stretch gave her. She was swimming in one of Blue’s t-shirts, the arms rolled up enough to let her easily grasp the bottle. Her eye lights were following Stretch’s fingers as he broke up a cinnamon puppy into bite-sized pieces into a small plastic bowl with colorful animals painted on the side. 

Edge frowned. “Isn’t she too young for that?”

"nah," Stretch said carelessly. He slid from the sofa to the floor, long legs folded under him as he set the bowl in easy reach for little hands. “we’re born with teeth, may as well use 'em.”

"Nonetheless, the sugar—"

“relax, edgelord, these ones are meant for her age,” Stretch reassured him. “i promise, i’m not about to turn your little sweetheart into a sugar fiend on you. not until she learns how to brush, anyway.”

The baby was already inspecting the bowl, her discarded bottle close by as she happily stuffed bits into her mouth, smearing crumbs over her small face. Not that he’d expected Stretch would do anything to harm her, but the promise, unnecessary as it was, was comforting. It did bring up another point, however, ‘his little sweetheart’ was entirely his responsibility, he’d chosen this, and now he needed to find their path, in whatever direction it might lead.

Stretch was watching the baby eat and his smile might be careless, but his watchful gaze was not. The instinct to come here was the right one so far, Edge could only hope it remained so. 

"I must ask that you let us stay here for a while," Edge said stiffly. "If not my brother and I, then at least the child. We…can’t go home right now." Or ever, but that wasn’t information that needed shared just yet. If he couldn’t care for her, at least he trusted that the Swap brothers would. Sleeping in the rough in Underswap would at least be relatively safe, certainly in comparison to their universe.

Stretch’s head whipped around, his mouth dropping open as he stared at Edge. "are you serious right now?"

The question stung. He’d assumed Stretch wouldn’t mind caring for the child for at least a little while. "Yes, of course, I am. She's an infant, she needs a roof over her head. She can't possibly—"

"shit, you really are,” Stretch interrupted, and his expression was torn between irritated and incredulous, “yes, dumbass, you're staying with us, why is this even a question? you ain’t getting off that easy. besides, you really think you'd be able to get little miss here away from blue when he sees her?"

Edge smiled reluctantly, already imagining Blue’s starry-eyed excitement when he saw the baby. "I suppose not."

The baby chose that moment to add to the conversation, offering a loud, razzing, “brrrr!” and spraying Stretch with a fine mist of slightly used cinnamon puppy crumbs. 

“thanks, kid.” Stretch said wryly as he wiped his face on his sleeve. He crawled over to one of the bags and pulled out a stack of cloths, using one to wipe the baby’s face clean despite her vigorous protests, “so. you gonna tell me where the snow princess came from?”

"She's not mine,” Edge said automatically, then winced. “I mean, she is, she’s my responsibility, but she’s not _mine_ , not in that way."

Stretch slanted him a glance, “yeah, uh, i saw you two days ago.” His faint smirk was fraught with memories of that particular meeting. “you weren’t hiding a baby bump under your shirt then. unless you not only solved the problem of getting pregnant but also how to bypass the waiting period, i figured she wasn't. sooooo?”

It was lightly said, but he’d seen Stretch’s smile falter when he was changing the baby’s clothes, peeling away her plain, sterile blanket to reveal the similar gown she was wearing beneath it. Not the cozy warmth of pajamas that a child should wear or even a borrowed shirt like the one she was in now, but a hospital-style gown with brusque ties in the back for easy access.

The story needed told, but Edge found he didn’t want to tell it. The scars he knew were on Stretch’s lowest rib were faded, scrubbed and sanded down until the numbers were barely visible. But they were still there, just like his brother’s were, and both were a match the fresh ones that were stark on the child’s own fragile rib.

In her little pillow nest, the baby was beginning to drowse and Stretch took the bottle, pulling it from her sleepy mouth and wiping away a trickle of milk. He tucked a blanket gently around her, not the discarded one from earlier, but one from the seemingly endless depths of those bags, soft and fluffy, cradling her tiny, precious skull in fluffy warmth as she slept. 

But the pointed lack of further questions were a quiet demand of their own, giving Edge time to answer, but still needing one.

Edge slipped down to sit on the floor next to Stretch, wrapping up in the warmth of his borrowed blanket as he stared down at the baby. Watching the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed easily, safely asleep for perhaps the first time in her extremely short life.

“It started this morning,” Edge began, slowly, and kept his gaze on the baby, watching as she slept on, completely unaware of the turmoil she’d caused in his life, in all their lives. “When my brother said that he had something important to show me.”

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

_That Morning_

The first task Edge had to accomplish was trying very hard not to vomit. No matter how he tried to brace for it, going through one of his brother’s shortcuts always sent his equilibrium into a tailspin that left him retching on his knees at the other side. 

Red only stepped to the side, mouth curling in distaste. “bro, you ever gone get over that? seriously, it’s embarrassing to have you yakking on your boots whenever we need a quick exit."

"Fuck off,” Edge rasped out, gagging back another heave. He took a slow, deep breath, another, and then staggered back to his feet, “If you’d care to quit bitching about my issues with motion sickness and tell me why you brought me here, we can get this over with. Where are we, anyw—” He paused, for the first time getting a good look at their surroundings. 

That morning, Edge wasn’t halfway through checking the traplines when his brother appeared, stepping out from nowhere directly in front of him as he never did. For once, his sharp, careless grin was absent and in its place were clenched teeth and grim words. “got something i need to show you, boss.”

Edge hadn’t hesitated to go with him. Much as his brother appreciated a terrible joke or a worse prank, Edge trusted him with his life and that unusual seriousness left him equal parts reluctantly intrigued and worried. 

A few hasty steps, a shortcut, and a bout of nausea later, and Edge was beginning to rethink that trust. 

He whirled around and asked in a furious whisper, “Have you lost your moronic little mind?”

“nah,” Red shrugged, rolling his shoulders lazily and turned to walk down a long, dimly lit hallway. “no more than usual, anyway. c’mon, this way.”

There was little choice but to follow him. Overhead, the fluorescent bulbs sputtered and flickered, flashes of lightning from a manufactured storm illuminating the trash and filth that lined the walls, giving them a setting that was perhaps better suited for the horror movies that Papyrus was so fond of. The comparison wasn’t far off; no sane Monster came anywhere near Alphys’s lab, which would certainly explain why his brother brought them here. It must be something like insanity on both their parts, on Red for coming and Edge for staying. 

Edge followed after his brother with carefully silent steps. He wasn't worried about Alphys seeing them on her cameras, they never seemed to work around Red, but that wouldn't help if she walked right in on them as she investigated some careless noise.

Red didn’t seem to have the same compunction; his sneakers trod heavily, untied laces dragging through the filth. His rough chuckle seemed to echo around them, carrying them along, “heh, you know what’s funny? i still know my way around in here. can’t remember where i put my fucking wallet most days, but an internal map of this shitheap, i got no problems. funny how some things stick.” He kicked aside a moldy ramen cup, a fouled plastic spoon skittering out of it. “i keep tabs on ol’ al, you know. i ain’t sticking my neck out, but i like to keep my nose hole poked into whatever she’s been gettin’ up to down here. just lately, she's been going through the old scientist’s shit, tryin’ to recreate some of his old experiments.”

“She’s been doing that for years,” Edge said, low. “What changed?”

Red stopped outside the door and an unexpected shudder went through his small frame, the rattle of his bones muffled beneath his heavy jacket. He straightened before Edge could so much as lay a concerned hand on his shoulder, twisting out of his reach with a casual indifference that was almost believable. “yeah, well, it ain’t the core she’s been workin’ on.”

Behind that door, the room was lit by a single bare bulb and in its incandescent glow, Edge could see several large, glass tubes filled with some sort of thick liquid lining the back wall, with wiring and pipes spidering out from them and across the ceiling. Beneath the bulb itself was a long steel table, starkly empty except for the unremarkable heavy cardboard box sitting directly in the middle of it. Red gestured sharply at it, though he didn’t approach it himself, and warily, Edge stepped forward to peer inside. 

He caught his breath against the raw, painful lurch in his soul, a brief moment of sharp pain that left behind a peculiar numbness inside him. 

Inside the box was a skeleton, so small that the perfect curve of its skull could easily be held in the palm of a hand. Its bones were bare, gleaming a soft ivory in the garish overhead light, its sockets were closed—no, her sockets, from the revealing arch of her pelvis. A female, a girl, a _child,_ sleeping naked and alone in a dank room in a hidden, underground lab.

Edge’s gaze drifted over her, absorbing every detail, from the tiniest fingerbones and their delicate joints to the breadth of her small feet. His gaze caught on her lowest rib and held there, frozen. There, engraved on her tiny, fragile bone, was a number, fresh and chalky-white, particles of dust still clinging to it. Unthinkingly, Edge reached out to touch it with a shaking fingertip, his glove whispering across the bone, and he could nearly hear her screams of pain as an indifferent scientist carved their mark into her, as if she was nothing more than another piece of equipment, something new to break. 

She stirred, her tiny face scrunching and her little legs drawing up as she mewled a protest, perhaps against his touch on the still-raw wound or perhaps against her callous nakedness, considering that there was a blanket carelessly tossed over the side of the box. 

Edge picked up the blanket and something fell out of it as he did, landing at his feet. He bent over to retrieve it, saw what it was. A dingy little gown, thin from repeated washings, one that had surely been used before years ago, 

(please let it be years ago) 

The numbness in his soul was fading and what it left behind was something else entirely. Edge gritted his teeth hard enough to taste dust and gingerly slipped the gown on the baby, covering her bareness. Then he cautiously wrapped her in the blanket, swaddling her tightly, and gently settling her, still asleep, into the curve of his arm.

Behind him, Red shifted uncomfortably, his shoes squeaking on the tile floor. “boss? what are you do—?”

He broke off on a shout, jumping back as the first attack swept through the room. Heavy glass shattered, as loud as a gunshot, a flood of foul liquid gushing from the broken tubes even as Edge summoned another attack, another, equipment sparking and shrieking beneath the onslaught of jagged, blood-red bones.

“what the fuck are you doing!?" Red screamed, but Edge wasn’t listening. He couldn’t, all he could hear was the child screaming in his head as a number was carved into her, scarring her permanently, marking her as not her own. 

‘S-3’

In one corner, a curl of rising smoke turned into a flame, yellow tongues licking at the trash surrounding them greedily. Smoke was filling the room, alarms beginning to blare as Edge turned on his heel and walked out. 

“boss,” Red moaned out, nearly jogging to keep up with Edge’s long-legged stride. “you’ve lost your everfucking mind.” But his mouth began to curl, a savage grin spreading across his face as he summoned his own attack, bones flying through the air and there was nothing but broken glass, the alarms, and the steadily growing fire. 

"we're gonna fucking die," Red grumbled as they made their way through the long hallways. But he followed along, wreaking his own destruction along the way.

* * *

“…and then we came here,” Edge finished. He didn’t look at Stretch, not at all sure what he would see in his face. Disgust, perhaps, for his lack of control, or horror that he very nearly led that world right here to the Swap brother’s doorstep. Better to look at the child, who was sleeping soundly in her little pillow nest. None of this was her fault, least of all her own creation, but it was all because of her, nonetheless. 

What came from Stretch was a question so far from his expectations that at first, Edge couldn’t quite comprehend it. “so what’s her name?”

Edge’s head jerked up and he could only look at him blankly. He didn’t even realize his mouth was open until Stretch reached over and gently closed it with a nudge to his chin. He didn’t pull away, only looked at the baby out of the corner of his socket, her rounded little face relaxed in sleep and her small hands closed in lax fists. Nothing like a name came to him, she was only the child, a baby, how could he possibly…?

Perhaps his growing agitation showed on his face. The knuckle on his chin turned into a light touch on his cheekbone, drawing his gaze back to Stretch. “don’t worry,” Stretch said lightly, “there’s no rush on that. we’ll put our heads together and think of something.” 

“She's my responsibility,” Edge blurted thoughtlessly, “This was my choice.” He winced even as he said it; it was true, but it wasn’t what he meant, he didn’t know how to say what he meant. This was his responsibility, his burden, but to call an innocent child a burden aloud was too repugnant to consider. 

Stretch only nodded. "yep, she’s all yours, no one is taking her away.” Those simple words eased some of the agitation rising inside Edge, even as Stretch tilted his head to the side, offering him a lopsided smile, “that doesn't mean you have to slap away any helping hands, edgelord.”

“I…yes. You're right,” Edge exhaled shakily, reminding himself that he already owed Stretch a great deal, with more debt to come. “Thank you.”

“you don’t need to thank me for this. in fact, i really wish you wouldn’t,” Stretch climbed to his feet with a groan, pressing both hands into the small of his back as he lived up to his namesake, his joints letting out a satisfying series of pops. “c’mon, you should lay down. get some sleep, you look like hammered shit.”

Edge couldn’t help a faint chuckle. “Flatterer.”

“sexy hammered shit,” Stretch amended. “Come on.”

To Edge’s surprise, Stretch gently scooped up the sleeping baby, who never stirred, only snuggled into his arms as Stretch made his way upstairs to his bedroom. It was suspiciously clean; before all this Edge had been planning on visiting tonight and he could only look at the crisp, clean sheets with a sort of exhausted wistfulness that they would not be used as intended. 

Stretch didn’t seem bothered to see his hard work go to waste. He flipped back the top blanket and settled the baby on the mattress, close to the wall. “hop in, edgelord, naptime.”

Realization that Stretch intended him to sleep with the child came slowly, and when it did, Edge took half a step back, balking, “What if I roll over on her? I could hurt her!”

Stretch snorted and shook his head. “you? don’t think so. me, maybe, but i so much as wiggle my big toe when we sleep together and you snap to attention. you’ll be fine, we’ll figure something else out later. c’mon, big guy, strip,” Stretch said teasingly, sweeping a hand across the sheets, “time for bed.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of the baby,” Edge grumbled, but he hesitantly obeyed, kicking off his boots and stripping down to his trousers. He left those on, it felt strange to sleep naked in someone else’s bed when they weren’t in it. His glare begged for Stretch to comment but he said nothing, only helped tuck the blankets around them as Edge settled in, being sure to keep a wary safe distance from the sleeping child before closing his own weary sockets.

“sleep well,” Stretch said, softly, and there was a soft brush across Edge’s forehead, like the shadow of a kiss. Soft footsteps made their way across the carpet, but Edge didn’t hear them. Despite his fears, he was asleep before Stretch even made it to the door.

* * *

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Edge didn’t know what time it was when he woke again. It had still been morning when they arrived and there was still artificial daylight creeping around the curtains. It could either be late afternoon or early tomorrow morning for all the help that his internal clock was giving him. 

He ignored the internal clamor that was pleading for him to go back to sleep, forcing his gritty sockets open. Rest could only replenish his magic so much, what he really needed was food, another slice of charity begged from the Swap brothers to add to his ledger, at least until he could find something resembling a job here.

(What could he even do here, would the denizens of this world look at his LV and only see a murderer, certainly Stretch had at first sight and—) 

But there would be time to begin that daunting task tomorrow. Right now, something else had his attention.

Stretch had been correct about, well, actually, several things and one of them was that he was incapable of sleeping through any nearby movement, especially when it was with him on the mattress. 

A glance next to him on the bed revealed that the baby was also awake and this time there were no screams to be had. Instead, she was inspecting her own feet with great interest, lying back on the bed with her oversized t-shirt puddled around her as her little fingers clumsily clutched at her wriggling toes.

Edge leaned up on an elbow, propping his skull in one hand as he watched her. “I suppose we were all that flexible once. I doubt Red could reach his toes now if someone tied a bottle of mustard into his shoelaces.”

The baby burbled something that might have been an agreement and managed to maneuver her foot into her mouth on the first try, gnawing on her own toes with slobbery vigor. She was obviously a genius, he decided, figuring out how to chew on her feet all on her own, and at her age…whatever her age was. He couldn’t be sure, there hadn’t been time for any of the niceties or paperwork, and whether it was measured by hours or days hardly mattered when it came to such an unusual method of creation. 

The door bursting open made him jump, halfway to summoning an attack before he recognized his own brother. Then he nearly summoned one anyway as Red stalked across the room, crawling unceremoniously across the mattress and Edge to reach for the baby. 

“all right, ya been hogging her long enough,” Red announced. 

“Hog-we were sleeping!” Edge sputtered. He curled around the baby, hiding her beneath him as Red struggled to crawl around him. 

“yeah, ya both sawed enough logs to fill the woodbox fer now,” Red panted. “lemme have the little crotchfruit.”

Edge struggled to keep the baby away from his brother’s child-thieving hands. “You’ll need a new insult, you know as well as I do that she didn’t come from anyone’s crotch.”

“good thing, too, don’t even wanna think about how that’d work with the size of her noggin.”

The child didn’t seem to mind the moniker. She crowed happily as the two of them wrestled around her, the mattress groaning threateningly with their struggles.

“c’mon, give it up,” Red whined. “i gave up all my shit to come here, too. ‘sides, i saw her first.”

“And left her!” Edge bit back a yelp as Red jammed a hard knuckle into his floating rib, the pain blinding him long enough for Red to scramble around his defenses. 

“can’t have a rescue without bringing in the cavalry.” Edge could only watch, resigned, as his brother nimbly scooped the baby up then crawled back across the mattress to make his escape, managing to knee Edge directly below the crotch with a casual sort of accidental that could only be deliberate. He grunted in pain, doubling over, as Red sauntered out of the room to the squealing delight of the baby. 

Lovely, she found the pain of others to be amusing. That was all the proof necessary to show that she was indeed from Underfell. 

Edge sighed and fell back on the mattress, contemplating what charity he might beg first. Food? Or a shower, his bones stank of smoke and burnt plastic. He should be able to trust Red to watch the child long enough for him to clean up, he’d managed to raise _him_ , after all…

…on second thought, perhaps he should check on the two of them first.

By the time he dressed and made his way downstairs, Red and the baby were sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. The baby was propped up again by the pillows and Red was piling wooden blocks into haphazard towers for the baby to gleefully knock over. 

Edge gave his sockets a hard rub and looked again, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. This was not the brother he remembered from his childhood, although to be fair, even if they’d had any sort of toys, they couldn’t have risked making noise with them. A strange sort of ache rose in his soul and Edge firmly ignored it. Obviously, he was getting hungry, time to head into the kitchen to see what sort of food was available. 

The scene in the kitchen was enough to stop him in his tracks again and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was some sort of hallucination, that perhaps they were still back at that lab and he’d failed, he was lying there as his life bled away, lost in a fantasy and—

The prick of his fingertips in his palms from his clenched fists was enough to convince him this was reality. Such as it was. 

Stretch was standing at the stove, spatula in hand and the eye-searingly pink of his frilly apron offered dubious protection to his clothes. He flipped the pancake effortlessly, only sparing Edge a glance. “hey. you didn’t sleep very long.”

“I slept enough. Can I borrow something to wear?”

Stretch waved him off. “sure, sure, mi armario es tu armario. get cleaned up, dinner in about fifteen.” Despite the splatters of batter splotching his apron, the pancakes looked delicious in a way that had nothing to do with his burgeoning hunger. 

Even with the promise of clean clothes that didn’t reek of char, Edge didn’t move, only watched as Stretch added the pancake to a pile that was already on the counter, buttering it lavishly and pouring out another round of batter into the pan. “I didn’t realize you cooked,” Edge said slowly.

“someone had to keep us from starving until blue decided to take over on kitchen duty,” Stretch shrugged. His smile was wry even as he expertly flipped the cake, “always tried to help him with it, but he can be pretty determined when he wants to be, insisted he needed to learn it on his own.”

And he’d obviously never pressed the point, despite however long he’d spent gnawing gamely at some of Blue’s more…imaginative…dinner creations, until Edge came to this world along with Papyrus and the three of them began to learn together. He liked to think that they were doing quite well, they hardly burned anything these days, but nothing they’d ever presented to their brothers had smelled quite as good as those pancakes did right now. 

Edge gave himself a little shake and turned away. “I’ll go get cleaned up.”

After quick detour to the closet, Edge made his way to the shower with haste. He didn’t mean to linger, his magic was gnawing at him to wash quickly and get back downstairs, but the hot water was glorious, with no unexpected icy bursts or rattling groans from the pipes. He stood in the stream, letting it pour down on him in a steamy, numbing waterfall, a pounding echo in his skull that allowed no space for thinking whatsoever.

That was his excuse for what happened next. 

“wet is a good look on you, edgelord.”

Whirling around to face the threat was automatic, but normally he was wearing boots with heavy slip-proof soles, not his bare bony feet against a wet mat. His feet went out from under him and he flailed for anything to hold him up, half-ripping down the curtain before the sudden tinge of blue magic seized his soul, holding on only long enough for him to get his feet back under him. He blinked water out of his sockets to see Stretch sheepishly standing by the tub, a towel in hand. 

“whoops, sorry, thought you heard me come in,” Stretch said, wryly apologetic. “i don’t normally get the drop on you. literally.”

Normally, Edge wasn’t foolishly trying to avoid his own thoughts. He switched off the water, fruitlessly swiping at his face with his bare fingers.

“Hand me the towel,” Edge said brusquely, ignoring the embarrassed heat in his cheekbones as he snatched it away from Stretch, briskly drying himself off. 

The temperature of his face only grew at the appreciative look that Stretch gave him, his eye lights wandering over Edge’s bones with enough weight that it was nearly a touch of its own. 

“you know, red is watching the baby—” Stretch began, slyly. He yelped as Edge pushed roughly past him to the commode where the clothes he’d borrowed were sitting. 

“You said dinner was ready,” Edge reminded him, dragging on the sweatpants he’d found in a pile of laundry that smelled reasonably fresh. A t-shirt followed and he’d resigned himself to whatever slogan was scrawled across it. His only defense was to not read it and he would simply have to base how awful the pun on it was on how hard his brother laughed when he saw it. 

“hungry, huh.” Stretch slouched down, casually tucking his hands into his pockets, but there was nothing casual or sedate about the way he ran the tip of his tongue across his teeth, slow and invitingly. “me too, baby, i’m always ready to eat you ou—”

“Let’s get downstairs,” Edge interrupted, and his bright flush was no longer strictly from embarrassment. In spite of everything, the temptation to take Stretch up on that offer was absurdly strong. This was…he didn’t know how to handle this strange flirtation. This was not how their relationship was. They baited each other, antagonized with insults and banter, they didn’t _do_ this, except it seemed that they did. 

The urge to kiss him right now was nearly stronger than his ability to resist, to press his tongue between those blunt teeth and taste the sweetness of his mouth. He shouldn’t, he couldn’t, not right now, but…

Thoughtlessly, Edge reached out, watched Stretch’s sockets widen in confusion as he ran a careful fingertip down his cheekbone. The bone was not so sharp as his own, Stretch’s skull was set with delicate angles that left him far prettier than he had any right to be. His looks were probably the most appealing thing about him, and yet, here Stretch was, stepping directly into cooking and childcare, and putting that assumption to shame. 

Softly, Edge said, with a sort of pleased jealousy, “You’re handling all this so well.”

A shadow crossed Stretch’s face, gone almost before it was seen. He reached up and took hold of Edge’s hand and gently drew it away from his face. “you think so, huh?” Stretch asked, with brittle politeness. 

That gave Edge a pause. “I did until you said that.”

Stretch exhaled slowly. “okay, so, my fuckbuddy, who is also sort of an evil clone of me, just showed up at my house with his brother and kid science experiment, and they need food, lodging, and a lot of fucking help. sound about right to you?”

Brutally phrased, but nonetheless true. “I believe that’s the basic summary, yes.”

“yeah, well, not a lot of room to fit a panic attack in, now is there. give me time.”

Guilt rose in a heavy throb. He’d dragged Stretch into this without once considering what it might cost him, knowing that he wouldn’t refuse. He wouldn’t change his choice if he could, but Stretch certainly had the right to resent him for it. 

“I’m sorry,” Edge began, haltingly, already considering the ways he might repay for what he was taking. 

“noooo,” Stretch shook his head, “no, no, you stop right there, no. no apologies, none of that shit.” He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “look, make you a deal. we are gonna be all up in each other’s faces for a while, so how about both of us get to bitch and moan to each other whenever the mood strikes, about anything at all, and the other person doesn’t apologize or snark or anything. they can either listen or add some of their own bitch to the batter. agreed?”

Edge could only nod. It was more than a reasonable bargain, he’d be a fool to refuse it. 

“come on, then,” Stretch gave him a nudge with his elbow and reached for the doorknob. “let’s rescue the kid before red starts teaching her how to pickpocket.”

* * *

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

It was to no one’s surprise that Red hadn’t waited for them to dig into the food, his stack of pancakes already half-devoured by the time Stretch and Edge made it downstairs. 

Edge only sighed at his brother’s manners and said nothing. If tomorrow was soon enough for him to begin searching for some sort of gainful employment, then it would also be when he could hold his brother accountable for his behavior again. As it was, his mouth was already watering when Stretch came back from the kitchen with two plates piled high with food, stacks of pancakes topped with pats of creamy butter melting into a layer of syrup along with fat, browned sausages. 

By now his hunger was gnawing so fiercely that his own manners were hardly up to his standards. He grunted a thank you, sitting on the sofa and hastily cut into the stack, groaning aloud at the first bite. The cakes were fluffy with crisp edges, generously soaked in butter and syrup, and lavishly rich. The sausages were perfect to cut the sweetness and Edge would have willingly gorged himself on the entire plate if it weren’t for one small problem. 

A pair of pale white eye lights were watching his every move, following the path of his fork from plate to mouth and back again, the child sucking on her fingers as she solemnly watched him eat. Drool was starting to run down her chin, slicking her tiny fingers and dampening the front of her shirt.

Edge swallowed his current mouthful, looking down at the plate and then back at the child, his fork faltering. Surely she was too young for this sort of meal? But then why was she watching him so intently, gurgling out an inquisitive little sound as her mouth smacked around her fingers. His appetite was fleeing, how could he possibly eat in front of a hungry child when all she’d had earlier was a little milk and a pastry? 

All his uncertainties were tangling together in the time it took Stretch to notice and his laughter was disconcerting, almost horrifyingly so, was he _laughing_ at a starving child?

“trying to sweettalk daddy edge into sharing, huh.” That name alone made Edge startle, protests rising and left unspoken as Stretch set his own half-finished plate on the coffee table and stood. “hang on, princess, your dinner is coming.”

He went back to the kitchen and returned with a bottle, shaking a few droplets on the inside of his wrist before he handed it over to the child. Who took it eagerly, latching on to the nipple as she slumped back into her small pillow fortress, suckling luxuriously. 

Stretch chuckled and retrieved his plate, forking up another bite. Around his mouthful, he said, “don’t let her fool you, she’s a little young for sausage and syrup.”

That he believed, but there were other doubts to consider. “How can milk alone be nutritious enough for her?”

“works for baby cows, but it ain’t milk, edgelord, it’s formula.” He jerked his head towards the kitchen. “there’s a few bottles made up in the fridge. you want it warm, not hot, when you hand it over, just heat up some water on the stove and put it in for a few minutes.”

Formula. That sounded familiar, like something he’d heard or read. He knew so very little about children and nothing at all about infants. It wasn’t as if anyone in his Snowdin ever brought their newborn over for a visit, how was he supposed to know anything without being trained. The librarby, he decided abruptly. They must have books on childrearing, he could stop by tomorrow when he went out to find employment. 

In the meantime, he leaned down to slap Red’s hand away before he could sneak the child a bite of his own pancakes. “Stop that, you’ll make her sick!”

“managed not to kill you,” Red grunted, but he ate the bite of pancake himself, unoffended. 

“That’s hardly an endorsement.”

“speakin’ a bros, where’s yours at, honey bun?” Red asked. Edge struggled to ignore the way he was licking the dregs of syrup from his plate. Tomorrow, he reminded himself, tomorrow was soon enough to smack the manners back into him.

“eh?” Stretch proved that his own brother’s presence was a cornerstone to his manners, wolfing down the last of his pancakes. “blue’ll be back tomorrow, he and al are doing some kind of night training, he said,” Stretch grinned and shook his head, “dunno what, but he brought his pajamas and a bag of marshmallows with him.”

“sound like my kinda training,” Red snickered. “i’d like to see alphys’s version of hot chocolate, if her kitchen makes it thru alive.”

The mere mention of Alphys’s name made Edge stiffen despite knowing it was a different person entirely, as different as Stretch was from him. Absurd for a name to have that sort of effect, he was only off-balance, a great deal had happened, and he snatched up his abandoned plate, eating the remaining food despite it having gone cold and congealed. He wasn’t about to start off his stay here by wasting supplies. 

“I’m surprised he didn’t come home when you told him,” Edge said, absently as he polished off the last bite. 

Silence. Stretch stood, busying himself with gathering up the plates into a stack, and carrying them off to the kitchen. 

Edge and Red shared a look, and Red jerked his head in Stretch’s direction, his raised brow bones speaking volumes, most of them a repeat of the words, ‘say something!’ A glance at the baby showed the bottle mostly empty and her sockets drooping heavily in preparation for another bout of sleep. 

This was his responsibility, from his choice. Edge gave a sharp nod and followed Stretch into the kitchen. He was sitting in front of the sink, lowered in deference to Blue’s height, washing the dishes briskly and setting them in the dish drainer. 

The Swap brother’s kitchen was a mirror to his own and even if it wasn’t, Edge was familiar enough with it to know his way around. He retrieved a clean towel from a drawer and began drying the dishes, setting them in neat pile on the countertop. 

“You didn’t tell him?” Edge asked, cautiously, but the answer was already clear despite not being given. 

The silverware clattered at the bottom of the sink as Stretch gathered it up into a soapy fist. “let me deal with my bro, okay?”

“This concerns us as well, if he asks us to leave…”

“he won’t. that’s not it,” Stretch sighed, still wrist-deep in dishwater as he let his head hang, “look, i know sans. he’d be so excited, really excited, and that’s fine. i just thought you guys needed a little time to settle in, is all, without any thrills and chills. he can be just as excited tomorrow.”

That was…actually incredibly thoughtful. Blue was a wonderful individual, Edge was grateful to call him friend, but he did tend to throw himself into things at a hundred and three percent, there was no dialing it back for him. A calm evening after the day they’d had did sound better than struggling to fend of Blue’s enthusiasm, no matter how well-intended. 

Stretch was still hunched over the sink as if he expected Edge to shout at him and that wasn’t entirely unwarranted. It wouldn’t be the first time Edge inserted himself into the Swap brother’s relationship, but it was the first chance he’d had to rethink that tendency. 

“All right,” Edge said. He picked up another glass and dried it, setting it to join its brethren. 

Stretch lifted his head. “yeah?” he asked, cautiously. 

“Yes,” Edge said decisively. “The child shouldn’t meet too many new people at once, it might be upsetting for her.”

“i…yeah, good point.” Slowly, Stretch resumed his dishwashing duties and if there was a faint smile curving his mouth, Edge ignored it. Helping with the housework was the very least he could do. 

By the time they were finished, Edge was struggling to stifle a yawn. In the living room, Red was slumped on the sofa, his sockets at half-mast as he watched the television. The volume was low and what Edge could hear from it sounded like Napstaton was working on a new mix tape.

In her little pillow nest the child was asleep, her empty bottle next to her. Edge stood over her, watching the rise and fall of her chest, and reminded himself to get that book tomorrow. He would figure this out, he would. “The baby stays with me tonight.”

“your funeral, bro,” Red yawned. He didn’t budge from the sofa, clearly intending it to be his bed for the night. 

“she can stay with us, in my room,” Stretch amended. He picked up the empty bottle and handed it to Edge. “go give this a quick wash, trust me, never leave a dirty bottle laying around, that’s a stink you don’t want. i’ll head upstairs with the princess and get her settled.”

It was sensible, Stretch knew where everything was in his room, but somehow Edge still found he wanted to protest. He wanted to carry the baby, wanted to hold her close a little longer. Instead, he nodded curtly and went back to the kitchen. They were here on Stretch’s sufferance, now was not the time to start making demands. 

He finished quickly and headed back upstairs, past his brother who was already snoring through Napstaton’s slick beats, and wondered what Stretch had in mind. The mattress worked for an afternoon nap, but he wasn’t comfortable with it as a nighttime solution, particularly not with Stretch in the bed with him, he wasn’t the type to wake at the slightest movement. 

Edge opened the door and froze with only one foot through it, staring. In the middle of the room was a cardboard box, Stretch kneeling next to it with both hands inside, and even from here Edge could see he was tucking the child inside. Not naked, not this time, she was still in Blue’s oversized t-shirt, she wasn’t asleep and alone in a lab, carelessly abandoned until she was needed again, a tool, not a person, something to be callously used and discarded. 

“hey,” Stretch said, hushed, “figured this’ll work until we figure out something else, she’s a little small to wander off and—" 

“No,” Edge said sharply. 

Stretch’s grin faded, his browbone furrowing in confusion, “what?”

“No, she can’t sleep in that, she won’t, I won’t allow it!” Edge said, his voice rising, and all his thoughts about keeping the peace had fled, buried beneath the chemical stink of memory smoke, the lab burning around them, and those numbers were hidden beneath the shirt, but they were still there, a scar carved into her very bones. 

“hey, easy, calm down…”

“I won’t!” Edge shouted hoarsely and a wail rose up around them like a siren, like the alarms at the lab. 

“edge!” The sound of his own name made him jerk, blinking hard. Stretch was holding the whimpering baby, jostling her against his chest. “you’re scaring the kid!”

And he was, her large sockets brimmed over with tears, staining her rounded cheeks as they began spilling down. 

“Oh, don’t,” Edge started, brokenly, reaching out to her helplessly, letting his hands fall as she began to wail despite Stretch’s gentle crooning. 

Those blasted tears from earlier weren’t as banished as he’d assumed, and Edge whirled away, tipping his head back to keep them from falling, tasting them instead on the back of his tongue, sharp and astringent, another memory and this one he refused, let his mind settle into blankness as he struggled against the rising pain in his chest, a deep ache in his very soul. 

“ooookay, everyone needs to take a deep breath and calm down,” Stretch said, loudly to be heard over the baby’s crying, then softer, coaxingly, “c’mon, sugar butt, easy now.” Slowly the crying dwindled to sniffles and the occasional hiccough. “there we go. come on over here, edgelord.”

Edge didn’t turn around. “She’s afraid of me,” he whispered.

Behind him, he could hear Stretch heave an exasperated sigh. “you got loud one time, for fu—udge’s sake. she’s not scared of you, so come here!”

That was definitely an order and one he needed to obey; their lives depended on staying on the Swap brothers’ good side. Slowly, Edge turned, moving stiffly as he lurched over to the two of them. He reluctantly allowed Stretch to draw him down to sit awkwardly on the floor, sockets closed, unresisting as Stretch pulled him close enough to rest their foreheads together with the baby between them. The ache in his chest slowly eased and Edge opened his sockets, looking down at the child. Who was looking back up at him with wide eye lights and there was no fear in them, only a simple curiosity.

“Hello, baby,” Edge told her softly, reaching with trembling fingers to wipe away one of the streaks drying on her chubby cheekbone. He almost jerked away when she offered a coo in return, reaching for his fingers in yet another attempt to cram them into her mouth. 

“see?” Stretch said quietly. His breath was a soft, sweet gust against Edge’s face, his smooth forehead resting against Edge’s damaged one. “you’re gonna make mistakes, a lot of ‘em. don’t start out by beating yourself up for it.”

Edge nodded slowly and when Stretch shifted to settle the baby into the crook of his arm, Edge held her close, scooting back to lean against the wall as he watched her unconvincing attempt at cannibalizing his fingertips. She was so light, the weight of her hardly more than a handful of feathers. Such a tiny bundle in his arms, so terribly important for such a small, perfect creature. 

Stretch climbed to his feet, dusting off his hands with exaggerated motions as he announced, “crisis averted, won’t be the last one. now, the cardboard box is out, got the memo on that, so how do you feel about a dresser drawer?”

Edge didn’t answer, only nodded and let Stretch start pulling blankets out of the box, muttering under his breath about whether the bottom or top drawer would make for a better bassinet. None of that mattered. All he wanted was to keep holding this child close and never let her go.

* * *

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, this chapter contains some sexy times. 😳

* * *

For all Edge complaints about Stretch’s general lack of order in his room, today it was much better than normal. The various laundry was in a colorful pile rather than strewn around the room and per his scavenging earlier, it was at least clean. He was already making plans to fold it and put it away tomorrow; just because he temporarily needed charity to dress himself didn’t mean he was about to walk around wrinkled as a skeletal version of a shar-pei. 

The mattress might have no bedframe, but it was still better than his own sagging old one back in Underfell—

(How long would their home remain untouched. When no one saw them again, how long would it take for greed and recklessness to shore up the courage of scavengers to face not only the possibility of his wrath, but also the traps set up around it. How much time would pass before all his and Red’s meagre possessions were stolen and sold, uncaring hands destroying what had taken them so long to build, how long)

His old mattress also didn’t include another skeleton to press up against him in the bargain, bare-boned and lovely. A terrible oversight, Edge could admit. 

He sighed inwardly as behind him, Stretch stirred, shifting to cuddle up closer against Edge’s back and inching him ever closer to the side of the bed. At least without a bedframe, he didn’t have far to fall. 

In the few nights Edge stayed over in the past, he’d been this way as well. Always something of bed hog, cramming up against Edge and clinging, taking far more than his fair share of the narrow mattress. He hadn’t really minded; it was a fair price for not having to dress and make the cold trek home after a little sexual indulgence despite the fact he couldn’t make his subconscious believe he was as safe here as he knew he was. He slept lightly, waking every time Stretch rolled over or squirmed against him, and he always felt the lack of decent rest the next day. 

Even knowing the trajectory of night, he still couldn’t bring himself to mind and whenever they’d agreed to meet, Edge stayed over more often than not. If the lack of decent rest making him snappish the next day, his brother never commented on it past a knowing smirk and the other guards were unphased by any amount of temper. Sleeping next to Stretch was almost as much an indulgence as the sex was, it was…nice, to sleep here with him. He was very warm.

Normally, Edge would already have drowsed off, quietly basking in that lovely warmth, but not tonight. As tired as he was, he couldn’t sleep. He was too hyperaware of the child sleeping on the other side of the room, carefully tucked into a dresser drawer that was lined with blankets. Twice already he’d slipped out of the bed and away from Stretch’s clinging arms to make sure the baby was all right. Ridiculous as it was, some part of him was convinced if he didn’t check on her, she might stop breathing. As if she was kept alive by the sheer force of his will alone. 

Each time she’d been sleeping peacefully, not even stirring, she had no sense of his anxious hovering and he could hardly blame her for her complete lack of survival instincts at her age. Unlike Stretch but that was another matter entirely. 

It was honestly absurd for him to think she’d be anything but perfectly fine, he knew that. Her life was hardly contingent on his own and that was something to be grateful for, but as ridiculous as it was, he couldn’t shake the idea. 

He was struggling with the urge to check on her again when a sleepy voice murmured close to his auditory canal, “having problems, edgelord?”

Almost, he told Stretch he was fine, nipping the idea that he was at all troubled firmly in the bud. But Stretch had warned him not to slap away any offered help and he found himself admitting, “I can’t sleep. My apologies if I’m keeping you awake.”

“mmhmm,” Stretch sighed out. His arm around Edge’s ribcage briefly tightened. A lack of pajamas meant they were both sleeping bare, normal for their past nights together and slightly more disconcerting on this one. “nah, you’re good. not surprising, really, lots going on. hard to turn off your mind when its running reruns all night long.”

“Yes,” Edge agreed softly.

“need your rest, though, the princess ain’t gonna care if you get forty winks or four. maybe i can help you out with that.”

The way his voice dropped to a deeper, velvety tone should have been a warning. The slim hand that had been resting innocently on Edge’s ribcage coming to life even more so, fingertips tripping their way downward and settling deliberately on the curve of his hip. The implication was obvious for a sedative far less subtle than a glass of warmed milk. 

Edge caught his breath, torn between reluctant interest and horror as he hissed, “There is a baby in the room!”

“on the other side of the room,” Stretch corrected, already nuzzling at the back of Edge’s skull, a delicate flick of damp tongue following the sensitive notches of his coronal sutures. “baby is asleep and likely to stay that way unless you get noisy again.”

Edge bristled, “I never—" A single finger pressed to his teeth, the hand attached lingering, gliding down to curl gently around his cervical vertebra. If anyone else dared an attempt to grip his throat, Edge would have removed their arm at the elbow with great prejudice. He couldn’t say why he didn’t this time and wasn’t thinking at all about trying to stay on Stretch’s good side, only that he wanted to lean into the pressure of that hand, let it hold him tighter yet. He closed his sockets, already nearly panting as Stretch crammed up against him, the long length of his bare, lanky body gorgeously warm against Edge’s.

“shhhh.” It was more breath than sound, gusting against the back of his skull. “hang on. kinda made you a promise earlier and i’m in the mood for a midnight snack.”

“It’s barely 10.”

“just go with it, honey.”

He shouldn’t, _they_ shouldn’t, he was an adult who shouldn’t need charmed and cozened to sleep. But Edge followed the sly hands that coaxed him to lay on his back, kept the blankets tugged primly up to his collarbone while Stretch slithered beneath them, his hot, wet mouth trailing a path downward over his ribs, his spinal column, down to his—

“oh,” Edge gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound. The room was quiet, the only movement was Stretch’s clever tongue against him and his own stuttered breathing. He spread his knees wider beneath the concealing blankets to give him more room, arching up helplessly into the hands cupping around his pelvis, holding him as Stretch lapped at delicate bone and soft folds of ectoflesh. 

By the time Stretch crawled back up, his pretty, used mouth hot against Edge’s own, all thoughts of the child had fled. He went willingly when Stretch urged him to roll back to his side, pressing up behind him again, the hard length of his shaft urgent against his tailbone for a brief moment before Stretch reached down to guide it.

He gasped as Stretch pressed deep inside him in one long, slow thrust, his groan muffled against Edge’s shoulder.

“fuck,” Stretch hissed through his teeth, an expletive and a truth all in one. “you always feel so good, you’re so wet, baby, you take me so good.”

He flushed at those words, turning his face into the pillow, breathing raggedly as Stretch filled him to the brim and then stilled, waiting, until Edge shifted impatiently and rocked his pelvis against him.

“Don’t stop,” Edge whispered into the clean sheets. Behind him, Stretch shifted, one hand on Edge’s hip, bracing him. The bedsprings creaked loudly at the first thrust and they both froze, their eye lights darting to the dresser drawer. They relaxed as no cry or stirring came. 

“okay,” Stretch groaned. “guess we do this the slow and easy way.”

Never had sex between them been so gentle before, the achingly slow slide inside him as Edge struggled to draw in shallow breaths of sex-smogged air. They moved together in a careful rhythm, legs sliding against each other, their hands clasped over Edge’s sternum and their fingers laced together. 

Beneath the blanket it was obscenely warm, sweat prickling along his bones with the slow flex of Stretch’s pelvis rocking against his own. Edge wanted to burrow into the blankets and breathe it in, bury himself in the luxury of warmth and the smell of their sex. Long, blissful moments passed and the rhythmic press of the shaft inside him began to unravel, its cadence going ragged as the approaching climax became inescapable. Coming was like a slow wave, pleasure lapping over him and Edge relaxed weakly against the mattress as Stretch quivered against him, bones rattling faintly and his low cry muffled against Edge’s scapula. 

They lay together, clinging, and Edge’s mind was finally, wonderfully silent, sleep beckoning at nearly the same moment a thin cry burst into the air and the baby’s low whimper quickly began rising into a wail. 

Stretch let out a weary chuckle that ended in a groan as he rolled away from Edge, kicking off the blankets to let in a chilly stream of air as he lay spreadeagle on the mattress. “welp, can’t complain, timing could’ve been worse.” He leaned in long enough to press a smacking kiss to the back of Edge’s skull. “toss on my robe and grab the kid, i’ll go warm up a bottle.”

He didn’t wait to see if Edge obeyed, crawling out of bed and skinning into a pair of shorts snatched from the floor as he headed out the door. As much as Edge didn’t want to move, much less walk, that was a challenge that couldn’t go unanswered. He rose on wobbly legs, dragging the robe over his still-sweaty bones as he staggered over to the child. 

She’d kicked off her blanket, perhaps it was the cold as well as her hunger that woke her, real clothing for her was added to his mental list. Her little legs were drawn up as she waved her tiny fists in her frustration, her pale eye lights creating a haloing effect around her face. His soul lurched unexpectedly when she caught sight of him and immediately reached for him, her wails increasing as if the solution to her problems was merely an issue of volume.

“Hush, hush,” Edge soothed. He lifted her into his arms, tucking a blanket around her, and her cries died back to whimpers. Her eagerly searching mouth accepted a finger as a brief alternative to the bottle that would soon be coming, sucking vigorously. So this was what parenthood was truly about, interruptions and sleepless nights. And crying, mustn’t forget the crying. 

He didn’t care. Edge settled back on the bed and pulled the blankets up around them both. He couldn’t help a little smile as he watched her frustratedly gnaw on his fingers while she whimpered and grunted.

“He’ll be back soon, little one,” Edge whispered to her. He’d be back with a bottle and likely cuddles, Edge suspected that he’d very quickly have two warm, sleeping skeletons lying against him, taking up more than their fair share of the bed and blankets both, and he was fine with that. He was almost looking forward to it despite the lack of sleep that he knew would be the end result. 

He waited for Stretch, soothing the baby as best he could, and in the deepest part of his mind, he wondered when that idea had become so very appealing.

* * *

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Please see this adorable art that achirding made for this chapter!](https://keelywolfe.tumblr.com/post/642747540363788288/keelywolfes-drifters)


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

Edge had gone long nights without sleep before. As a child, he’d often spent the night curled up with his brother in hidden corners and caves, struggling for any measure of warmth beneath threadbare blankets as they both kept half-awake listening for any telltale footsteps coming their way. 

As an adult, he often stayed awake on his own accord. There was always work to be done, whether for the guard or simple housekeeping, and he subsisted on no more than four hours of sleep a night. It was sufficient to replenish his magic and that was all that was necessary. Armed with that knowledge, it made it very difficult to understand why caring for an infant throughout a single night seemed so much worse. 

Every two hours, she woke crying for a bottle, with enough accuracy he could nearly set a clock by it. It would start with a whimper and before Edge could even throw back the blankets, her screams would reach their peak earsplitting volume. Even Stretch couldn’t sleep through those wails and the first two times, he’d been the one to stagger downstairs for a bottle. Edge was certain on the last occasion he never opened his eye sockets, and he was torn on whether teleporting in the midst of exhaustion was more or less a danger than the chance he might fall down the stairs. 

Rather than test that theory, Edge went to heat the bottle the next time and if he’d thought trying to comfort the baby while waiting for her meal to arrive was difficult, standing over a pot of water trying to will it to heat faster was somehow worse. At least he could attempt to reason with a baby, physics obeyed no rules but their own. 

Each time she would drain the bottle and then immediately fall back asleep. The logistics of it were so simple, retrieve bottle, feed baby, then back to sleep. She didn’t even require a diaper change like so many other infants would, so why was this so blasted exhausting. His current belief was that somehow her cry drained energy like some sort of localized version of a vampiric spell and next time he was determined to run a check on himself to ascertain the truth. 

But that would have to wait until they’d all gotten some rest. After her last bottle, not only had the chore of washing it out immediately after use been abandoned, so had tucking her into her own bed. In his sleep-deprived state, Edge decided that if she slept by the wall with him between her and Stretch, then she would be safe from being squashed in the night. As a strategy it did work, for about an hour, until Stretch rolled over in his sleep, right off the edge of the mattress to the floor with a loud thump and a louder curse. 

Edge managed to wake up enough to check that he hadn’t accidently dusted himself in the fall and then promptly fell back asleep. The child hadn’t woken, that was the important part, and he could only hope that sleeping children didn’t learn foul language through some form of mental osmosis.

When he woke again, it wasn’t to the baby’s cries, but a stream of artificial sunlight coming through the curtains to fall across his face. He cringed away from it, but it was too late. The light was like the angel’s finger poking him directly in the socket, the time for sleep was over, and now he needed to face the harsh light of day. 

A bleary look to one side found the bed empty and what remained of the blankets looked as if a tornado struck, not of trash, but one made up of baby’s tears. 

Edge peered over the side of the mattress to find Stretch still snoring on the floor. Sleep was perhaps a less accurate description than out cold, he looked as if an alarm clock set atop his skull wouldn’t wake him. On the floor under his mouth was a darkened patch of drool, he was half-tangled in one of the blankets with one bare leg sprawled out across the carpet, toes curling against the cool air, and he did not stir one single inch despite the loudly creaking bedsprings. Plus, the light couldn’t reach him down there. Edge allowed himself a brief instant of rueful resentment before rolling to the other side to deal with the child, who over the course of the evening dwindled from Stretch affectionately calling her a ‘little snow princess’ down to the simply ‘the kid’. 

“It’s all right, child, he’ll do better after some rest,” Edge said blearily…to no one at all. The sheet next to him was empty and for a moment, Edge only stared at it uncomprehendingly, cold panic slowly settling in his soul at the unbearable nightmare that was unfolding before him. That Alphys had found them out and come for her, the machine not destroyed enough and instead the portal was lying wide open like a gaping wound as not one, but an army of Underfell Monsters came through.

He shook away that fear before it could take root, dismissing it as impossible. To begin with, her first step would have been to murder them as they slept. Casting aside that panic only allowed a new one to take its place, the mystery of _‘then where is she’_ still unanswered. 

She was too young to have crawled away, she was nowhere in the room, so that left one last possibility. Edge clambered out of the bed, stepping over Stretch’s prone body as he jerked on the bathrobe and headed out to find his brother. 

Who was sitting peaceably on the sofa with his pilfered infant settled contentedly in his lap, staring up at him with wide sockets as her chubby cheek bones puffed out with every suck on her bottle.

Red didn’t even look up as Edge stormed down to stand in front of him. The fury of his glares had never been able to penetrate much through Red’s aura of casual ease. His brother was humming softly, a song that Edge knew the lyrics to quite well and could at least be grateful that Red didn’t choose to share them with the child.

“’bout time you got up, bro,” Red said, singsong sweet. He was laying back against the sofa arm with the baby cradled between his knees. “you was sleepin’ pretty hard up there. kiddo was awake and getting’ ready to start complaining’ when i came in to play fetch.” His tone was easy, but Edge did not miss the sharp censure in his glance, crimson eye lights coolly assessing.

“I wouldn’t count on it happening again,” Edge said coldly. He met his brother’s gaze unflinchingly, waiting until his brother slowly nodded. Apology accepted, as it were, and Red turned his attention back to the baby. 

“this little miss is a hungry one.” He gave the bottle an idle tug, grinning as the baby made a querulous noise and clung to it, never pausing in her urgent sucking. “drinks her weight and then some, don’t she. you were the same way, never could scrape up enough chow to keep you happy.” It was fondly said, but Edge only barely kept himself from wincing. He didn’t want to remember days of going hungry, the gnawing, endless emptiness inside his soul, wanted even less to picture the same thing happening to this child. 

(never, never, he wouldn’t allow it, he would not)

“I doubt that will change anytime soon. Speaking of which, if you could watch over her, I’ll be going out today.”

“huh?” That got his brother’s attention. “what the fuck for?”

“To find a job of some sort, to begin with,” Edge said, “We can hardly expect the Swap brothers’ to keep paying our way.” He didn’t have the first clue what formula cost, but he suspected that it was not cheap.

“fuck, bro, we’ve been here two minutes and you’re already polishin’ your resume?” Red groaned. “take a day to get settled in, fer cryin’ out loud!”

“There’s no time for that. I was also going to go to the librarby to find a book on childrearing—”

He broke off as Red hooted a harsh laugh. “you serious, bro? you think you’re gonna find an old copy of ‘what to expect with your skele-baby’s first year’? gonna set up some training time with the local moms, mebbe they can teach you their special parenting attacks. you’ll be captain of the childrearing guild in no time, bro, better start working on your uniform now.”

“You—” Edge began and couldn’t continue, only stood listening mutely as his brother’s laughter soured, his words going bitter.

“think i fucked up that bad with you, is that it?”

It wasn’t at all true. He knew very well that his brother did the best he could, he’d been a child himself, he never should have had to help with an infant. He _knew_ that, they both did, but the words refused to come. Before either of them could say another word, spiteful or otherwise, another voice entered the fray, sleep-sodden and mellow.

“you two loud enough down here?” From upstairs and Edge looked up to see Stretch ambling down the stairs, still yawning and rubbing at his sockets. He was only wearing a pair of shorts, the rest of his lanky bones on display from the crown of his skull to his bare toes, and he had no right to look as simply attractive as he did despite the darkened crescents beneath his sockets. 

“sorry, sleeping beauty,” Red snorted, “next time we’ll work on our charades instead, how’s this ta start?” 

Stretch ignored Red’s upraised middle finger, slouching closer to peer at the baby. “where did the jammies come from?”

Red jerked his head towards the front door where a paper sack was slumped by the various shoes. “your doggo pal dropped off some clothes. didn’t seem to know what to make of me, think maybe he decided blue went for a big fashion change.”

“bet he’ll appreciate hearing about going goth at the next sentry meeting.”

The mention of pajamas made Edge take a closer look at the child. He’d been so relieved to see the baby was safe that he hadn’t even noticed her change in apparel. She looked like a proper baby now, from the cozy footie pajamas to the colorful bib around her neck. The bottle was long since empty, but she hadn’t yet surrendered on the off chance that perhaps a few last drops might yet make an appearance. 

Stretch didn’t wait for her to give up on it and simply took it away, scooping her up despite Red’s disgruntled protests, and cuddled her close. “lookin’ good, sugar butt!” 

He buzzed a wet, noisy kiss against her cheek bone and she squealed in delight, then hiccoughed, a dribble of milk running from her mouth that dripped down to stain the bib. “uh huh, like that is it, everybody is a critic.” He swung her gently around and Edge automatically took her as Stretch deposited her into his arms, “here, edgelord, the princess needs a bath.”

A bath. That much was certainly true after a restlessness night of milky dribbles. 

Edge didn’t move, he only held her uncertainly, shuffling his feet as he reluctantly admitted, “I don’t know how.”

“it’s easy,” Stretch yawned, his spine popping as he raised both arms over his head with a groan, “just bend over. you’ll have to handle it, you’re young and flexible, my back is talking to me like a bowl of rice krispies. wash her like you’d wash your feet. not too hot on the water and there’s bubble bath under the sink. go easy on it or it’ll be like trying to grab a greased watermelon in an ice storm.”

With that direction, Stretch only stared at him expectantly. There was nothing he could say, no protest to be made, and Edge turned on his heel and went back upstairs to the bathroom. He stood by the empty tub, looking down at the baby in his arms. She looked back at him, her thumb firmly in her mouth and her eye lights wide and bright. 

So small and delicate, her skull small enough to fit in the cup of his hand. A tiny being composed of fragile bones, it would be entirely too easily for some careless fool to accidentally hurt her. Even if they didn’t mean to, even if they were only trying to help. 

He couldn’t do this.

Edge lurched around, heading out the door and ready to call down to Stretch to admit his uselessness when heard his brother’s voice.

“…tryin’ to tell me how to deal with my bro?” So dangerously soft, a warning rarely given for their intended recipient to take care with whatever they said next.

“actually, no, i’m not,” Stretch said. There was a creak of springs as if he’d settled to sit on the sofa. “i wouldn’t do that to you guys. it’s just, he’s not used to all this, so go easy on him, will you? he’s trying really damned hard, he doesn’t need you ragging on him right now about the kid. he thinks the world of you, you gotta know that. so bust his chops about anything else, the baby is off limits. please.”

He couldn’t see downstairs, so he could only imagine what expression was on Stretch’s face that would be enough to make his brother grumble out, “yeah, yeah, honey bun, i get it. lay off until he lands on his feet.”

“thank you. he’s got this, you know. his confidence only took a shake, happens to everyone when they take a step or two out of the comfort zone. give him a little time, he’ll be a whiz. lining up for his best dad coffee mug before we know it.”

“eh, he’s already doing pretty good, ain’t he,” Red said with obvious pride. Edge closed his sockets, swallowing against the sudden thickness in his throat as he listened. “shoulda seen him bustin’ up that lab, kid never hesitated. just grabbed up the little miss and started wreckin’ the joint.”

“i bet. sorry i missed it.” Stretch said, sincerely, and if there was a certain dark satisfaction in those words, it was certainly understandable.

In his arms, the baby began to squirm, and Edge hastily slipped back into the bathroom, quietly closing the door behind them. He settled the baby on the bathmat and turned on the taps, adding a single capful of bubble bath and cautiously checking the temperature before kneeling at her side.

“Ready for a bath?” he asked her, already working to gently strip off her pajamas.

He took her gabbling squeal as a yes and if he, and the bathroom, were nearly as wet as she was by the time she was scrubbed clean, well, that was fine. He’d do better next time.

* * *

tbc


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

In Underfell, Edge always showered quickly and efficiently. It was the surest way to avoid the bursts of cold that came from their capricious hot water heater, and there was no reason to assume things would be different in Underswap. Efficiency was the key to many things in his life and kept the juggling act that was his life well balanced between his guard duties, his training with Undyne, and simply dealing with his brother. 

He’d expected to be able to transfer those lessons to caring for this child; practical efficiency, that would be the way. What he hadn’t considered was how such a tiny little creature could thwart his plans so easily, nor had he anticipated how much effort was involved in all this, even when it came to something so simple as a bath. 

Once the tub was full of water and frothy bubbles, and the baby was down to her bare bones, Edge was forced to consider the best method of bathing her. She wasn’t able to sit up on her own, but she could if braced and managed to more or less hold her head upright, surely a minor magic of its own considering the ungainly size of her skull. 

The easiest approach seemed to be holding her up with one hand and bathing her with the other. It was a reasonable strategy. He should be able to finish quickly with none of the aforementioned ‘greased watermelon’ issue coming into play.

What he didn’t take into account was that she was less of a simple slippery melon and more of a sentient squirming slippery melon, with legs and arms and an unshakeable will of her own. 

The moment he lowered her into the bath, the child began to thrash, making a fair attempt to bash the bubbles with both tiny fists and feet. She laughed gleefully as the water splattered around them, right up until the wave returned to splash her directly in the face. 

The baby sputtered and coughed, floundering as she gasped for breath while Edge struggled to keep her head above the water. Her chin trembling as she turned her dripping face to him, sockets wide and wounded as if seeking reassurance for this terrible betrayal. 

Edge couldn’t hold back a low chuckle, “I’m sorry, child, but that’s what happens when you don’t consider the consequences of your attack.”

His amusement seemed to spur her own. Her upset forgotten, she chortled happily and renewed her attack on the water, and this time the wave encompassed them both. In the end, there was very little washing on his part. The best he could manage was keeping her from slipping underwater as she splashed and played. It wasn’t the most efficient method, but he had to admit, she was very clean when he finally lifted her from the tub despite her loud protests. 

Then came drying which turned into a game of its own when he learned that if he held up the towel so she couldn’t see him, then quickly dropped it, she would squeal happily, hands and legs flailing with her excitement. That continued long after she was dry, until she began sucking on her fingers again, a sign he’d learned to read as meaning that food needed to be on its way soon or else the screams would quickly begin. 

Her pajamas had escaped her watery wrath, at least, and that gave him another new experience to manage. She seemed to have very little control over her own limbs, they flailed and waved seemingly of their own accord and combatting that to gently navigate them through narrow sleeves and pantlegs proved a heroic task all its own. 

By the time he was done, she was clean and dry, sitting pertly in her light blue pajamas with a snowflake motif, and he was a sweaty, damp mess in Stretch’s ratty old bathrobe. How did parents manage this, he wondered, how had his _brother_ managed this? His esteem for everything his brother and Stretch must have endured to care for him and Blue had raised tenfold in the past 24 hours, with no end point in sight. 

The finger sucking was increasing in urgency and Edge sighed inwardly, already resigned to all his hard work being rendered useless within the hour. He lifted her up, cautiously balancing her on his hip as he’d seen Stretch do, and found it not only comfortable but also a way to free one hand. 

“Come along, little one,” Edge told her, smoothing that hand down the curve of her skull. “Breakfast is downstairs.”

She babbled softly, little nonsense sounds of agreement that food was an excellent choice, and he smiled helplessly. 

“You need a name,” he told her as she cooed up at him. “But perhaps I need to know you better before choosing one.”

Down in the living room, Stretch and Red were sitting on the sofa together, looking for all the world like they hadn’t been talking about him while he was gone. One of those colorful bowls was in the table, half-full of some sort of pale mush.

“hey, you two,” Stretch said. One side of his mouth curved in a half-smile, his gaze more on Edge’s bedraggled form than the baby. “made it out alive, huh?”

“She made a fair attempt at drowning me,” Edge admitted.

“ya look like she won,” Red said, unimpressed, and of course he wouldn’t know Edge had already heard his pride this morning. That memory was already tucked away safely in his soul. 

“there are no winners at bath time, only survivors.” Stretch reached for the child. “here, let me handle second breakfast while you get changed.”

Edge stepped back enough to put both of them out of reach. “I can do it,” he said firmly. 

“sure you can, but i can also help, you know.” It was lightly said, in the same tone as yesterday when Stretch pointed out he didn’t need to slap away helping hands. It left Edge torn with indecision. On one side of the coin, he needed to become accustomed to handling the child on his own. Once he found a job and they found a place to live, he wouldn’t be able to depend on Stretch for simple childcare. But on the other, he was here now, damp, undressed, and thoroughly ready for breakfast and a shower of his own.

He looked at Stretch, at the dark circles under his sockets, the mismatched clothes he’d likely scrounged from the unfolded clothes pile. He’d already done so much for them, more than anyone could reasonably expect, far more than a fuckbuddy, as he’d called it, should. Edge couldn’t keep asking for more. 

“She’s already wreaked her havoc on me,” Edge managed to gesture at his damp bathrobe without the use of his hands, “I may as well take the full brunt of the damage she can cause before I clean up.”

It was the right thing to say. Stretch laughed and shook his head. “heh, fair enough.” He gave the bowl a nudge in Edge’s direction. “have at it.”

Edge settled the baby into her little pillow fort before picking up the bowl. The contents were gooey and a brownish-beige, unrecognizable. He sniffed it warily, “What is it?”

“banana.”

Edge scooped up a spoonful and let it fall back into the bowl with a wet plop. His experience with bananas was limited to pictures he’d seen in books. That was the sort of fruit only found in the King’s orchard, not in the outskirts of the Ruins where Snowdin lay. 

“It doesn’t look like any of the pictures I’ve seen,” Edge said doubtfully. For one, he was very sure that bananas were supposed to be yellow, not the shade of the old personal computers that littered the dump. 

“you probably saw them pre-baby smash,” Stretch said, “g’wan, she’s waiting.”

She was in fact smacking her mouth like a baby bird, gurgling hopefully. Well, he’d trusted Stretch so far, now was not the time for doubts. He scooped up some of the gunk and poked the spoon between her teeth. Then he had to grapple it free when she bit down, grunting and wriggling enthusiastically as she messily swallowed down her mouthful. 

Behind him came smothered laughter from his unwanted audience. 

“yeah, gonna have to be quicker than that,” Stretch chuckled. 

Red hooted a laugh of his own. “be glad she ain’t got sharp teeth. almost lost a finger coupla times with you.”

Edge scowled at the baby, who met his glare with pure innocence that no longer fooled him. He was a captain in the royal guard, a days-old child was not going to outmatch him.

This time when he poked the spoon into her mouth to deposit the banana, he quickly pulled it back out before her teeth could close around it. 

“Aha!” Edge said triumphantly. “You see? A little cooperation and we’ll get this done, child.”

“Brrrrp,” the baby replied, spewing smashed banana directly into Edge’s face. He sputtered, falling back, but it was too late. He could never again say that he didn’t know what slightly used banana tasted like, not unpleasant but definitely not something he’d choose on his own.

A sort of strangled sound came from behind him and he swung around to find Stretch nearly neon in the face, his gaze firmly on the ceiling and his teeth locked together. He refused to meet Edge’s glare, only studied the ceiling as if the answers of the universe might appear there, if only he looked hard enough.

His brother, on the other hand, was never shy about enjoying the pain of others. Red only grinned at him, asking with disturbing sweetness, “problems, pap?”

“Not at all,” Edge said stiffly. 

“uh huh. paybacks a bitch, bro.”

Before he could scold Red for his language— honestly, her first word was going to be some sort of swearing, he just knew it— the front door opened, and Blue was talking before he even made it through the entryway.

“Papy, I’m home,” he called, “which you shouldn’t be because you’re supposed to be at your sentry station, what if a Human came through—"

Blue stopped, words trailed off as he stood in the doorway, a swirl of snowy air blowing in around him as he took in Edge, dressed only in Stretch’s bathrobe and a newly acquired layer of banana, his brother and Red taking up the sofa, and of course, their smallest and newest guest who paid him no mind, too busy preparing to decorate Edge with second banana-y coating.

“Is that a baby?” Blue said at last.

Edge groaned inwardly. Here we go again.

* * *

tbc


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

Edge was not a Monster who cared very much for surprises. In his experience, they never led to anything good, not to birthday parties or unexpected gifts, but rather ambushes and dust. He preferred careful planning to the seat-of-the-pants schemes that his brother often came up with, every step made with strategy in mind. 

He couldn’t say for certain if Blue was the same way, although he suspected he may be. His understanding of how the alternate worlds worked was more for the layman rather than the professional, but he wasn’t blind to the personality traits that he and Blue shared, the sort of twist in nature vs nurture that any sociologist would love to explore. 

He had a fair idea of how he might react to finding this clown car of a domestic scene in his own living room and if he’d known that Stretch hadn’t even mentioned he and Red were here, much less the baby, he would have at least sent Blue a blasted text. 

That might have at least braced him and given him a chance to come up with a better question than simply, “Is that a baby?”

His brother, ever the peacemaker, chose that precise to speak up, scoffingly, “sure can tell you two are brothers, ya share the same brain cell, your bro said the same damn thing. yeah, it’s a baby, good on you for noticin’.”

“blue!” Stretch scrambled upright and his bright grin was too wide, too wrong, tinged with poorly hidden guilt. “sorry, bro, i was gonna call and it slipped my mind. yeah, hey, everyone showed up on our doorstep yesterday. check out the snow princess, cute, huh?” 

That much at least was the truth, but Blue didn’t seem to have heard a word of it. This wasn’t quite the reaction Edge had been braced for; he’d expected Blue to make a beeline for the baby, had been resigned to handing her over for plenty of excited cuddling and cooing. 

This was something else entirely. The normal stars of his eye lights were overly bright, flashing between blue and yellow with seizure inducing intensity, set into a face that was like stone. He barely glanced at the rest of them past a brief, bizarrely sympathetic glance at Edge. The anger in his gaze was for his brother alone. 

Stretch seemed equally confused, his oversized smile faltering, “bro?”

“How could you?” Blue said, his voice carrying despite its deadly softness. 

“wha…me?” Stretch looked around the room as if perhaps another person had appeared, that it was to this stranger his brother spoke that way. He shrank back as Blue abruptly moved, slamming the door shut as he stalked over to the sofa, his small body radiating fury. 

“How could you!?” Again, louder this time, not quite a shout but verging on one.

“coulda woulda shoulda? bro, what the hell—”

Blue ignored that, stamping his foot and sending out a spatter of rapidly melting snow from his boot to dampen the carpet. “Irresponsible!”

Stretch’s face was falling, going oddly blank, his false humor fading. Next to him, Red looked equally perturbed. “now hang on a sec, short stuff, ain’t no reason to go off on the honey bun.”

“Stay out of this!” Blue snapped and for a wonder, Red jerked back, his mouth snapping shut. His eye lights briefly guttered, leaving his sockets dark and black, returning only when Stretch spoke up next to him. 

“yeah. stay out of this,” Stretch agreed, softer but no less sharp and from the look he shot Edge, he was included in that statement. 

Edge said nothing and even the child was silent, a dab of runny banana sliding down her chin as she stared at the Swap brothers with wide sockets. Even if he’d wanted to intrude, this argument was between brothers and it was an unspoken rule through all the ‘verses that one did not interfere with brothers. 

Despite the surface similarities, none of their relationships were exactly the same. Edge knew all too well that if he railed at Red over his laziness, his brother never took it to heart or soul. He let Edge rant, blowing off the steam that built within him throughout the day and his frustrated insults rolled off Red like water off the proverbial duck. The only fallout tended to be yet another sticky note added to the continuing line trailing away from a single, absurd sock. 

Stretch was, well, lacking waterproofing. More like Edge in that way, truth be told, and if Edge could snipe at his brother all day long for his ridiculous puns and lazy ways, one genuine return jab from Red often left him deeply wounded, all the more painful for its unerring accuracy and rarity.

He wondered how he’d handle being under the weight of that much visible disappointment. Edge almost always agreed with Blue’s assessments of his brother’s behavior, but his delivery needed work and the unexpected impulse to protect Stretch from that disappointment took him off guard. He wanted to scoop Stretch up like he did the baby, hold him close, cradle him in his arms and protect him, and that was ridiculous, utterly; he was an adult, older than Edge, and yet the urge remained. 

In the end, Edge could only look away, stirring the gloopy remains of the banana while the two brothers whispered furiously behind him.

“Of all the careless, irresponsible—” Blue took a deep breath, let it out, muttering out, “This is all right, this is fine. We can deal with this.” He scrubbed his gloved hands over his face and then squared his shoulders as he said, “You still should have called me.”

“probably,” Stretch agreed, and perhaps the unexpected storm had passed. He relaxed back into the sofa, the tension in the room easing. “didn’t want to interrupt your important training.” He flashed Edge a sharp glance and he tried to look as if that was the exact reasoning. 

“Yes, well, that’s true,” Blue admitted. “And I appreciate you thinking of that, but next time…well, there probably won’t be a next time of this, I should hope.” Any lingering worry that Blue might object to them staying for a time vanished as Blue finally swung back to the baby, this time with a familiar, bright smile on his face as he gushed out, “Which is a shame because she is simply adorable!”

He rounded the coffee table with the haste Edge originally expected, grabby hands extended, and the moment Blue bent down to reach for her, the baby burst into sobbing howls, squirming away. 

Automatically, Edge swung her up, settling her against his shoulder and patting her back gently as he soothed her with a bewildered, “There, there, it’s all right. What’s wrong?” 

Blue looked as if he might burst into tears himself, stumbling back a step and his eye lights faded from stars to unhappy circles. “I didn’t mean to—"

They both turned to look at Red as he let out a harsh laugh. “what’s wrong? he scared the shit out of her coming in like that, that’s what’s wrong,” Red snorted contemptuously, “don’t you know nothin’ bout babies? you’re almost as bad as my bro.”

“Not really,” Blue admitted. Shame filled his expression as he shuffled his feet. He noticed he was still wearing his boots and sat on the floor to pull them off, carrying them over to the door and automatically straightening the other shoes before adding his. “Most of my experience with children has been seeing them from a distance.”

That gave Edge a start and he realized he’d been expecting Blue to have some sort of knowledge about childcare, though he wasn’t sure why. This world was softer and tended towards kindness, but that hardly meant it gave them any innate parenting skills.

“Well!” Blue straightened, propping his hands on his hips. “I’m sure that the Magnificent Sans can learn!” 

“sure you can, bro,” Stretch said, cautiously, and that Edge could understand, being very familiar with Blue’s brand of determination. 

“yeah, well, here’s your first lesson,” Red slouched back on the sofa, picking at his gold tooth with a sharpened fingertip. “babies don’t like it when ya shout.”

“yep, that’s a good place to start. you know what, i’m gonna get everyone some coffee,” Stretch announced and fled to the kitchen, the coward.

Blue paid that no mind, already came back over determinedly when he spied the bowl Edge had hastily shoved on the table. The child was watching him warily as Blue picked it up, taking hold of the little spoon. “Here, let me help!”

Before Edge could stop him, Blue tried to poke the filled spoon into her mouth. The child refused to part her teeth, leaving a smear of mushy banana across them, and Blue’s brief confidence sagged, “Oh. Um. Maybe she’s not hungry?”

“Maybe.” Edge took the bowl back and immediately she began bouncing eagerly in his lap, mouth opening wide as she made urgent little sounds. 

“fuck, you two are morons,” Red snorted, because of course he would stay to bear witness. “she don’t _know_ you. kid is small, she ain’t blind. she ain’t gonna take her banana goop from just any plain asshole, she likes an asshole she knows.”

“Yes, thank you for clarifying that for us all, brother,” Edge said sourly. Somewhat gentler, he said to Blue, “Sit with me. Let her see you, it may make her more comfortable.”

“yeah, hold out a hand and let her sniff ya, that’ll do it,” Red chuckled meanly as Stretch came back out with a tray of mugs. He set it down before smacking Red on the back of the skull. 

“will you cool it on the running commentary? let them work it out.”

Red rubbed his head and scowled, but he accepted the coffee cup when Stretch handed him one. “just callin’ it how i see it.”

“yeah, well, if they give up on trying, that leaves you as mary poppins, smartass.”

“good point. my teeth are sealed.”

The child grudgingly allowed Edge to settle her back on the pillows with the unspoken promise of more food. She watched Blue warily the entire time she was eating, but he made no move towards her. He sat obediently still the entire time, his gloved hands clasped tightly together in his lap as if to stave off any impulse to scoop the baby up. If nothing else, her attention on Blue kept her from messily sharing any more of her banana. 

When the bowl was scraped clean, Edge wiped the child’s chubby face clean with a damp cloth then settled her back into his lap. “You see, little one?” he told her softly, “Blue is a friend.”

“I am! I really am! Want to come here?” Blue slowly held out his hands without getting too close, waiting with impressive patience. The baby looked from him to Edge, and he tried to look encouraging. 

Slowly, she held up her arms to Blue. He lifted her a little awkwardly, but managed to get her settled into the curve of his arm without intervention. 

“There we go!” To Edge’s relief, Blue kept his enthusiasm at a minimum, though he practically vibrated with excitement. Almost immediately, the baby began to loudly babble and if he didn’t know better, Edge would say she was scolding Blue for his part in the earlier brotherly dispute. 

Soon enough, her chattering dwindled to murmurs, her sockets growing heavy, then closing entirely as she slept. Edge let Blue keep holding her as he gratefully took up his own cup of coffee and never had caffeination been so delicious. 

Blue only looked at her in awe, lightly touching each of her tiny, perfect fingers. “She’s beautiful,” he whispered, turning the full force of his starry eye lights onto his brother, “but honestly, Papy, you should have told me you two were expecting a child!” 

Stretch choked, spilling coffee down the front of his shirt. “wait, what? that’s why you were so pissed off?”

“I would have thought you would be more cautious about that sort of thing, but I suppose it hardly matters now,” Blue said philosophically. “You still should have called me though when she arrived!”

“but we didn’t…!”

“Here we have a new baby, and I wasn’t even able to give her a baby shower!”

“She’s already had a bath,” Edge said, confused. This was going entirely too fast and he was not in top form, how could they possibly have been expecting her, there was nothing about the past two days that Edge had expected in the slightest. 

Rescue came from an unexpected and wholly unwanted source.

“fuck’s sake, blueberry, she ain’t their kid!” Red snapped. 

“Don’t swear,” Edge and Blue said, nearly in unison. Then Edge nearly choked on his own coffee as realization clicked with the force of an open-handed slap. Blue thought that the baby was _his_ , not simply his responsibility but his own and Stretch’s. Suddenly his earlier sympathetic look made more sense, by Asgore’s horns, of all things he could believe…!

“She’s not?” Blue asked, confused. “But, then where did she come from?”

“where the fuck do you think, numbnuts?” Whatever the patience Red usually had for Blue seemed to have found its limit. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, all but slamming his mug down on the coffee table, “she wasn’t flown in by the stork, kid was homegrown just like the rest of us and she’s got the fucking serial number to prove it!”

“Oh.” There was a wealth of meaning in that single, soft word, too many to properly interpret. Blue looked down at the baby sleeping in his arms, his fingertips hovering over her rib cage without touching, right over where her pajamas hid the healing scar. The same scar his brother and Red still had, faded and blurred, but still there. Then he wordlessly handed her to Edge, climbing to his feet and walked determinedly over to his brother. 

Stretch only watched warily, allowing Blue to take away his half-empty coffee cup to shove it on table, ignoring the splash of coffee that slopped out and spread across the wood. He slid his small, strong arms around him, holding onto his brother tightly. 

“I’m so sorry,” Blue said simply. The words were muffled, buried into Stretch’s coffee-stained hoodie. “I shouldn’t have been so upset with you and I certainly should have let you explain.”

“aw, bro, it’s okay—” Stretch hugged him back, resting his cheekbone on top of Blue’s skull. 

“It’s not,” Blue said, the words tainted with the hint of a sob. “I assumed you were being irresponsible, and I shouldn’t have.”

“not like i don’t give you a reason for that.”

“There’s a difference between a messy room and, well, this.” They stayed there a moment longer, holding on tight, and when Blue drew away, he swiped a hasty sleeve over his damp sockets. “Now!” Blue clapped his hands together softly. “I think we should discuss living arrangements.”

“We can,” Edge said, quietly firm, “but I hardly think that will be necessary. We won’t be here for long.”

The sudden trio of protests was loud enough to wake the baby and Edge turned away, bouncing her in his arms as he tried to soothe her back to sleep. He’d known there would be objections, but he couldn’t allow them to sway him. This child was his responsibility, his choice, and his alone. 

He had a duty to her and Edge was determined to see it done.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

Edge had always had a plan for his life. Since he was a small child forced to spend his days watching Red beg, barter and steal for their meals and shelter, he’d been determined to help his brother provide for them as soon as he could. To bring them out of the dump and the back alleys to something better, from gutter trash to the Royal Guard. 

It hadn’t been easy, but he’d done it, and between the two of them they’d managed to make a home for themselves, a decent one he’d always believed. Until his brother began tinkering with that old machine in the basement, the one that would never do anything until it did, and he discovered there was more outside their own little, dust-filled world. So much more, other Universes that didn’t abide by the rule of kill or be killed, where children might be trapped beneath the mountain but still played safely in the street. 

There were times he’d thought about leaving their universe, in the darkest nights when fresh LV was settling heavily into his soul like lead while Edge fought his way back out from its shrouding numbness, struggling to keep his sense of self. He’d never let those longing ideas take hold; despite everything, Underfell was their home, there were people that needed him there, Monsters who depended on him.

He’d abandoned it all for the sake of this one child and if this was the new plan for his life, then he would handle it, as he had everything else, no matter what. 

Whatever protests Red and Stretch were offering to that decision were drowned out by Blue’s dismissive, “Don’t be silly, of course you’re staying. Aren’t you?” Then with rising alarm, “You wouldn’t be going back to Underfell with her, would you?”

“No,” Edge said, “Not Underfell.” Again, he kept it to himself that that was no longer possible. In his arms, the baby was slowly settling, her drowsy sockets sinking closed again.

Blue was still nattering on in his relief, lowering his voice in deference to the baby’s whimpers easing back into sleep. “Then of course you’ll be staying with us! Oh, but we’ll need to make some changes around here. There’s only two bedrooms, that isn’t enough. Maybe the garage, yes, yes, the garage!” He clapped his hands together in quiet delight. “We can turn it into an apartment, I’ll put my Human cage somewhere else, yes, that’ll be perfect for you and Edge, Papy!”

Stretch only sat on the sofa, blinking a few times, as if the light was suddenly too bright. He was looking at Edge and the baby, but turned to his brother at that, “uh, say what?”

“An apartment for you and Edge, do keep up,” Blue said primly. He raised both brow bones in obvious implication, “Unless you’re about to tell me that the two of you weren’t going to share your room?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Edge repeated patiently before Stretch could answer him. “This is only a temporary arrangement. As soon as I find some employment, we’ll work on getting our own place, you don’t need to rearrange your entire home.”

Red sat up, sputtering, “okay, back it up there, bro, what, now?”

“Why would you do that?” Blue said, perplexed. He tilted his head to the side, reminiscent of the Dogs back in Underfell when Edge gave them an order they didn’t quite understand. “We can’t help take care of the baby if you move out.”

“You don’t need to help care for her,” Edge said, “she’s my responsibility.” 

“Nonsense, it takes two to tango as they say and there are four of us!”

“Not if the child is created in a lab!” Edge snapped. The baby stirred and he lowered his voice, “This isn’t about birth control, this is about taking her away from someone who intended to use her as a lab experiment. I chose to take her, she’s my responsibility, and I will do my duty. The three of us won’t be staying here any longer than necessary.”

The silence hung in the air, nearly tangible. 

After a moment, Stretch rolled to his feet, slouching across the living room to a side table where he started rummaging through the drawer. He came out with a pack of cigarettes, already stripping off the cellophane as he said, “you heard the man, she’s not ours, she’s _his_. he’s got a handle on it, let him take care of everything. i’m sure he’s got it all figured out.” 

He didn’t look at Edge, walking straight past him in his disheveled shorts and mismatched sweatshirt to the rug where he shoved his feet into a pair of slippers before jerking open the front door, cold air pouring in. He went out, closed the door carefully behind him. 

Red groaned loudly, “you really are a dumb fucker, aren’t you, bro.” 

Arguing was familiar to Edge, but not while holding a sleeping infant. His kept his voice low and even, did not think of Stretch out in the cold lighting what would surely be the first of several cigarettes. “He doesn’t need to feel responsible. He didn’t choose this.”

The only person responsible was Edge, for coming here to begin with. There hadn’t been much in the way of choice on that, all he could do now was try not to compound the damages by leaving as soon as possible, before his debts grew past his ability to pay them. 

Red only glared at him. simmering fury in his crimson eye lights, “yeah? me either, but i’m still fucking here, so i think i get a vote.”

“You’re different.”

“about three feet of different, yeah.”

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it!” Edge snapped, “You’re my brother.”

“that i am. but i ain’t the only other person with a stake.” Red sounded frustrated and they glared at each other, Blue standing to the side, hands clasped in front of him as he looked nervously between them. 

Red did not look away from Edge as he said slowly, "blue. why'nt you go upstairs to your room with your gear, get unpacked, settle in."

Blue didn’t move. He stood uncertainly, his feet shuffling as if they wished to obey.

"blue," Red said, terribly soft and the undertone was pure Underfell, "i ain't askin'.

He nodded then, snatching up his bag and heading up the stairs. His bedroom door closed as softly as the front door had and they were alone. 

"okay, just you and me, bro. first things first,” Red held out his arms, “hand me the kid.”

“She’s my responsibility,” Edge repeated doggedly. “I chose this, you didn’t.”

“yeah?” Red demanded, “you come up with that idea all by your bad self? why the fuck you think i brought you to the lab, sightseein’? she was never not gonna leave with us, you just grabbed her first. you so busy tryin' to call dibs, you're forgettin' i saw her first.” Red never looked away, met Edge’s eye lights unblinkingly as he told him, “i been letting it go on account of you bein' new to all this, but now i’m tellin ya. give her here.”

Edge hesitated a moment longer, then stepped over to the sofa. 

It was somewhat disturbing to see how easily Red folded her into his arms, cradling her expertly. She settled in with a contended little sigh, snuggling into the fur lining of his jacket. “there we go, honey.” Red crooned with a gentleness that he had never seen in his brother before. 

Red said nothing else, only sat with the baby and Edge stood, waiting impatiently, until his brittle endurance broke. “Well? I’m sure you’re waiting to explain to me how I can’t handle this, so let me stop you before you begin. I can and I will, I’m doing fine so far.”

“oh, yeah, you’re doin’ swell,” Red snorted. “wanna take a good look at yourself in the mirror right now?”

Edge resisted the urge to shrink from that pointed comment, tugging Stretch’s robe tighter around himself. “That’s hardly fair, it was my first night with her!”

“ain’t none of this fair,” Red said agreeably. “‘specially not to her. wasn’t fair to you when i slipped us out of the lab before you could get your own special tattoo and we ended up on the streets.”

“Red—“

“wasn’t fair to me that i had ta do it,” Red went on, relentlessly, “but life ain’t fair, that’s a lesson i never had to teach you. you learned it all on your own.” He sighed heavily and settled deeper into the sofa cushions, drawing up his knees into a sort of cage around the sleeping child. “you know all that shit. so, now you wanna tell me what the fuck is wrong with you?” He jerked his chin towards the stairs, then back towards the front door. “we got her outta there and now you got people throwin' themselves at you to help and you just gotta do it all on your own, dontcha. lemme clue you in to something, little brother, the reason i raised you up on my own is ‘cause there wasn't anyone else to help!"

“I don’t need anyone else to help,” Edge hissed. He crossed his empty arms over his chest, gripping his upper arms in both hands so tightly that his phalanges ached. “I can do this on my own!”

“so, what then? we move out of this place and i move in with ya, but i don't get to help with the little miss?” His crimson eye lights were coolly assessing. “gonna go out there and get a job, right? whose gonna watch her while you're raking in the g?”

"I…” Edge faltered, "I'll pay someone. A babysitter."

"someone. someone you can trust more'n us?"

“No!” His soul clenched in his chest, already rejecting his own idea. Who could he possibly trust with her, even in this world, who could look at the symbols on her ribs and not rouse curiosity, perhaps take their questions to another scientist at another lab who might well have read the old paperwork left behind and— "Of course not, that isn't what I meant. I’ll handle it!"

“oh, i getcha. you’re the only you're allowed to take care of her.” Red rubbed a thumb gently down her rounded cheek and her mouth moved briefly as if readying itself for a bottle within her dreams. So small, so fragile in the cradle of his brother’s arms. “lemme ask you somethin' bro, are any of the rest of us allowed to love her, or are you callin' all of that, too?"

He’d never heard his brother so much as mention the word love before and something already tight in his soul clenched harder, painfully. "I can't ask you all to help me with this!"

"bro.” Red looked up at him and his expression was deeply pained and conflicted, none of his emotions hidden behind his normal veneer of sneering indifference. “i know it's hard for you, but you gotta pay attention. you ain't asking for help, heh, really not, not even close. we're offerin'. so let us offer.” 

It must be his exhaustion, Edge thought, that made his emotions rise so close to the surface. Lingering heavily in his chest, rising into his throat and refusing to be swallowed away no matter how hard he tried. He _was_ tired, so tired, and not simply from being kept up throughout the night. There was so much he’d lost in only a day’s time, lost and gained, and what he felt most strongly in this moment was a complicated grief. 

Red nodded as if he could read every unspoken sentiment on his face. He patted the sofa next to him, scooting to the side, and Edge lurched over to sit next to him on legs that felt detached and shaky, sinking into the cushions. The moment he was settled, Red leaned over to lay the sleeping baby in his arms and he swore she was already putting on tangible weight since he’d first carried her away. She was already growing and changing, all he could do was try to guide it, to make sure she was cared for properly. That she was loved. 

Red shifted up to sit on the back of the sofa, his shoulders against the wall. It put him taller than Edge, for once. “i don’t wanna see you running yourself ragged trying to do everything. been there, done that, ya know?"

“I can’t,” Edge whispered, the words soft and broken. He looked at the baby in his arms, at her peacefully sleeping face. He was so tired. Everything was so clear yesterday and now the course of his life was clouded, the linear line of it veering drunkenly along an unknown road. 

“sure you can. am i your brother or not?” Edge nearly flinched from the hand that settled on his skull, caught himself just in time and instead leaned into it. He closed his sockets as his brother gently stroked his coronal sutures, the same way he had so many years ago now, on cold nights when Edge couldn’t sleep, holding him close as he crooned vulgar lullabies. There were no songs this time, only words drenched in unspoken promise, “‘cause little brother, i’m still plannin’ on taking care of you, too.”

Edge couldn’t say anything to that, he only nodded.

“good.” That stroking turned into a gentle rap of knuckles against the top of his skull. “now get your head on straight. go out there and apologize to the honey bun for tryin' to take away his kid just when he was gettin' used to the idea of havin' one. 

“Our relationship isn’t like that.” Fuckbuddies was the word Stretch used, and it was not one that implied any form of shared parenthood. 

“no?” Red said doubtfully. His chuckle was familiar, his humor tickling along the side of unkind. “then you better make damn well sure he knows it. mebbe you should start by askin’ him how he feels before you go on makin’ up his mind for him.”

Edge didn’t reply, but his brother’s point was brutally accurate. He owed Stretch that much and a great deal more. Now all he needed was to shore up his faltering courage and start paying his debts.

* * *

tbc


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

Now that his brother seemed to have made his point, with the harsh brutality that always came with his moments of pure honesty, he was in rare form. With a last pat on Edge’s skull, Red hopped briskly off the sofa and reached out again for the child. “hand over the kiddo, then go put some clothes on. little hard to chat in this weather with the wind blowin' up your skirt.”

It wasn’t exactly getting easier to hand the child over, but at least Edge was less reluctant to do so. The child didn’t seem to notice or mind being passed around like a side dish at the dinner table and he left her sleeping peacefully in his brother’s arms as he went upstairs to dress. His own clothes had yet to be washed and still stank of the twisted, burnt electronics from the lab. He had no choice but to borrow from Stretch’s laundry pile again, sweatpants that bagged at his ankles and a bright orange sweatshirt with the dark outline of a ribcage printed on it. A caution sniff revealed nothing, but the scent of laundry detergent and he dressed quickly, leaving the banana-speckled robe in the pile with his own clothes. If this went well, he could wash them later and if it didn’t, well, he’d end up washing them anyway, if only to be able to wear his own trousers again. 

His half-hearted hope that Stretch would have come back in by now was dashed as he came back downstairs. To his surprise, the child was already awake and Red was on the floor with her, zipping up the front of a tiny snowsuit striped in pale blue and white. 

“here ya go,” Red said, scooping her back up and holding her out for Edge to take. There were long floppy ears attached to the hood like those on a puppy, ruffed with soft fur. Edge looked at his brother, who shrugged. “don’t ask me, it was with the stuff the dogs dropped off.”

Edge took the baby, balancing her on his hip. The extra layer of padding did make her easier to hold. “After all that about helping me with her, you can’t watch her while I do this?”

“sure i could, but i figure she’s a good buffer.”

Possibly, or simply a reminder to Stretch of exactly what they were arguing about. “You don’t even know where he’s gone.”

“sure i do,” Red offered him a negligent shrug. “he went around the back of the house to smoke. shortcutted the second he went out the door.”

Edge still hung back and it was not out of reluctance, thank you, he simply wanted to have a proper plan in place before taking the child out into the cold. “He could have shortcutted from inside the house if he was going there.”

Red let out a loud snort, crawling back on the sofa and sprawling out. “and miss out on his grand exit? nah.” He laced his hands over his middle and closed his sockets, perfectly ready to nap as if he hadn’t a care in this world or any other, the little bastard. “now quit being a pussy and get out there before the dumb fucker freezes to death out of spite.”

There was a great deal Edge would have liked to say to that and might have if the little ears eagerly listening hadn’t already gotten plenty of profanity fodder for the day. He shut his mouth with a click and, baby in arms, headed out into the cold. 

Just as Red predicted, Stretch was standing in the cleared area at the back of the house, his concession to how much his brother disliked smoking. His back was to the pathway and as Edge watched, he flicked the last bit of ash from the butt in his hand, crouching to extinguish it in the snow before dropping it into the rusty coffee can tucked up under the house eaves.

There was an unfamiliar slump to his shoulders and an unexpected urge came to Edge to soothe it away, but how could he, knowing that he likely caused it. Stretch told him from the beginning not to slap away a helping hand and he was afraid he’d struck a much harder blow than that. His brother certainly seemed to think so and now it was to him to heal it, if he could. 

Edge didn’t disguise the revealing crunch of snow from his footsteps, but Stretch didn’t turn around. He shook out another cigarette, poking it between his teeth. “you two don’t need to be out here, i’ll come inside in a mo’.”

Edge stopped, holding the baby who was beginning to squirm in his arms. “I came out to talk to you.”

It was starting to snow, heavy flakes falling and dusting across Stretch’s shoulders. Stretch still didn’t look at him, his gaze was on the woods, on the side of the house, flicking anywhere but towards him. “like i said, i’ll be back in a minute.”

“This can’t wait.”

With the sharp rasp of a lighter, Stretch deliberately lit the cigarette. The lighter clacked loudly as he closed it, his words blurred around the filter as he said, “the smoke isn’t great for her.”

It wasn’t good for Stretch, either, certainly not in that quantity, but Edge held that back. “Nonetheless, we’re staying.”

“guess you know best, don’t you.” But he took a few steps to the side, the cloud of his exhaled smoke blowing away from them into the wind. 

It was becoming a challenge to hold the wriggling child and Edge crouched down to sit the baby in the snow, scooping up cold handfuls and packing it up behind her back as a brace. She looked up at the falling flakes wonderingly, her sockets wide, her pink mittened hands reaching skyward. Her first snowfall, he realized, surely a strange and wonderous thing to even so small a child. 

Perhaps Stretch was thinking the same thing. He looked down at her with a little smile, but the faint softening on his face hardened almost as quickly, a certain blankness falling over it. He turned away, taking such a long drag on his cigarette that half of it turned to ash in that one breath. “so what was so important it couldn’t wait.”

The temperature was dropping with the upcoming storm and Edge tucked his chilly hands into the hoodie pocket as he searched for words. Finally, he said, “I think I hurt you earlier, with what I said.”

“yeah?” Stretch chuckled darkly. “you think so huh? well, let me take the maybe out of the equation. can’t say i’m surprised, you do make being an asshole a fine art.”

Usually Edge would have sniped back, piled on his own insults as recently as yesterday. Today was a new day and he only nodded slowly. He looked down at the child who was nearly bouncing in her excitement as snowflakes fell on her cheekbones and forehead, fluffy whiteness almost the exact color of her pale eye lights. 

“I'm no good at this," Edge said abruptly. 

That cool blankness softened a little, some warmth bleeding back into Stretch’s expression. He rolled his shoulders in an approximation of a shrug, the tiny snowdrifts gathering there cascading to the ground. “eh, don’t be so hard on yourself, you're getting better. look at the little snow princess, all bundled up in her gear.”

Edge chose not to mention that Red was the one who dressed her. "That isn't what I mean. I'm not good at any of this.” He took a deep breath and plowed ahead, “My brother thinks you want us to stay here permanently. Here, in your house, with the child."

Stretch snorted and dropped his cigarette butt to the ground, crushing it beneath his sneaker. “yeah? you think?"

"You didn't say anything."

“didn’t know i was supposed to. what was i supposed to say?” Stretch said, frustrated. “when was i supposed to say it? i could use some cues, edgelord, i can read anyone’s expression at twenty paces, except you, i can never figure out what’s going on in that skull of yours.” He chuckled tiredly, rubbing the bridge of his nasal cavity as if his head ached. “maybe it’s too much like mine.”

“Then tell me what’s going on in your head,” Edge said, “What do you want?”

Stretch shook out another cigarette but didn’t light it, only turned it over and over in his fingers from tip to filter, watching it spin between his fingers. “you don’t wanna know what’s in my head.”

“I do.”

“Yeah?” He looked up then, briefly, his eye lights glittery and unreadable before he looked away, “you want me to tell you how i see you here all scared and struggling and lost, and it’s like a fucking dream come true for me?”

“What?” That was unexpected and Edge took a step back, shocked to his core. That was a confession he’d never considered, couldn’t quite believe he’d even heard it, not in Underswap, not from Stretch.

“no?” Stretch kept his gaze on his own hands, presumably so that he didn’t have to meet Edge’s shocked gaze. “didn’t want to hear that, did you. even better, what kind of manipulative asshole tells you all this when i know you don’t have many other options? you want to hear the really real truth? i want you here, dumbass. not just the kid, you.”

“Of course you do,” Edge agreed, perplexed. None of this was making any sort of sense. “we’ve been sleeping together for months, you’ve always allowed me to stay the night and now—"

“fuck, you really are thick.” Stretch groaned. He let his skull fall into his hands, his fingertips scraping against the hard bone. “i wanted you here to stay forever, not just the damn night!”

Perhaps he was as dumb as Stretch claimed, Edge thought, because he only stared at him in utter bewilderment. “What do you…?” 

“i want you to stay!” Stretch shouted, the words carrying in the still, cold air. “i always wanted you to stay, but i played the game right, did it just how you wanted.” He shuddered, hands dropping from his skull as he wrapped his arms around himself, clenching fistfuls of his sweatshirt until the fabric strained in his grip. “didn’t get too attached, played the good fuckbuddy. just me, right, the lazy ashtray, undependable stretch, good for a lay and that’s about it. i could give you that if that was what you needed. and then you show up on my doorstep with a kid that looks just like you, all but begging me to help?” He shook his head and his visible despair made Edge’s soul throb in sympathetic harmony, “i can't do it anymore, okay? can’t pretend anymore. you may not want me, but you've got me, both of you. hook line and sinker.”

Edge could only stare at him, mouth open, gaping like a fool. “She doesn’t really look like me,” Edge said weakly. It wasn’t at all what he wanted to say, but other words refused to come, hovering just out of his mental grasp. 

Stretch didn’t seem to have heard him. “you want me to beg? i can beg, i’ll do whatever it takes.” He dropped to his knees, reaching towards Edge, and seeing it hurt unexpectedly, the pureness of his desperation. “stay here, with us. all of you, we want you to stay, edge. you and the little snowflake and even red, package deal and all that shit. i want you here, in my bed, in my _life_ , and i want to help you love that little sweetheart who didn’t ask to be created, much less anything else. i just…let me?” His voice cracked, but Stretch went on relentlessly through it, soft and shattered as he said, “maybe let me love you, too? just a little?”

That was the second person to mention love to him today, the same word with so different a meaning because Stretch wasn’t looking at the child; Stretch was looking at him, at Edge. He was supposed to be out here securing an agreement for help with the baby and instead, Edge was thinking of how Stretch looked when he cradled the little one gently in his arms. Thought of his laughter, loud and bright, and how hearing it always made his soul clench strangely in a painless spasm. He thought of how Stretch looked in his (their?) bed, not only flushed with pleasure, but sound asleep and as unpretty as he ever was, always with a limb draped over Edge as if to keep him within reach. 

He thought of all of that in the space of a single moment and there was only one answer Edge could give.

“Yes,” Edge said simply.

Stretch stilled, his sockets going wide. Snow settled on his hectically flushed face along with disbelief, both warring with dawning hope. “yes. yes? you said yes, you...you really…”

Edge reached out to Stretch, pausing as he scrambled hastily to his feet, his sneakers sliding in the piling snow.

“don’t do this if you don’t mean it, i mean, really mean it.” Stretch reached out with trembling fingers to rest a hand over Edge’s sternum, pressing almost painfully hard. “right here, down in your soul. this isn’t about debts or fucking or anything like that, not anymore. you can’t give me everything i want and then take it back away from me, not this time.” His voice broke again, but this time it was held together with rising hope. “you can’t.”

“I mean it,” Edge said hoarsely. 

“okay,” Stretch breathed out, closing his sockets, “okay, okay.” Edge didn’t know if he was reassuring himself or simply catching his breath and didn’t care. He stepped up to cup Stretch’s cold cheekbones in his warmer hands and kissed him, only a brief press of mouths before he drew back. And then his noise of surprise was muffled between them as Stretch surged forward and kissed him back fervently, and his teeth might be cold, but his mouth was hot, desperately eager as he poured all the emotions he’d bared directly into that kiss. 

A happy squeal interrupted them and Stretch reluctantly withdrew, dropping down to kneel carelessly in the snow again, this time in front of the baby. She reached for him enthusiastically and he chuckled, scooping her up to cuddle her close.

“what, you want one too, snowflake?” he teased, and her babbling turned into a shriek as he buzzed a loud kiss against her cheekbone. “you’re about as cold as a snowflake, too, time to get back inside.”

Stretch held out a hand to Edge, palm up, and he took it. The three of them walked along the short path around the house together. 

They were nearly to the porch when Edge said, “You always call her that."

“huh?” Stretch paused in his efforts to make ridiculous faces at the child, “what do i what?”

“Snowflake, snow princess,” Edge said, thoughtfully, “You always call her that.” 

“guess so,” Stretch didn’t seem particularly bothered by his penchant for nicknames. “i dunno, i call people lots of things. she’s got those big ol’ white eye lights, the way they sparkle always makes me think of snowflakes in the morning, you know?”

He did. A rare thing of beauty even in Underfell. “All right, then.” Edge reached for the baby and Stretch handed her over willingly enough. Edge held her up, rubbing his nasal aperture against hers while she giggled happily, her mittened hands resting on top of his skull. Fat flakes were falling around them, dotting her chubby cheeks and forehead, and Stretch was right, they did look like her eye lights. That settled it for him and he announced, “Her name is Snow.”

Stretch had been watching them, smiling and now he blinked, tipping his head to one side. “snow?” Stretch said, considering. “huh. i like that.” He jerked his chin towards the door. “now let’s go inside before she lives up to it. c’mon, it’s cold.”

“We still need to work out a strategy,” Edge said, following behind him. “I’ll need to get a job to begin with and—"

“yeah, i know, i know, gotta have a plan.” Stretch stopped again, leaning in to press a kiss to Edge’s mouth and another to Snow’s little cheek, making them both smile. The weather might be cold but his soul was warm, fluttering in his chest and it only pulsed harder when Stretch took Edge’s free hand again, walking backwards as he tugged them both along. “can it wait until after lunch?”

“Yes,” Edge agreed, “after lunch.” They’d waited this long for their lives to come together, they could wait a little longer. Edge held Stretch’s hand in his own, their child snuggled in between them, and followed him back home. 

-finis-


End file.
